Following a news report that the Ghana Rubber Estates Limited (GREL) risks shutting down, the General Secretary of the General Agriculture Workers Union (GAWU), Edward Kareweh, has called on government to ban the exportation of raw materials - rubber.

He wondered why Ghana exports raw rubber when the country does not have this commodity in abundance.

Speaking on Connect FM, Mr Kareweh said the plantation of Ghana Rubber Estates Limited has been encroached on by illegal miners.

He accused both government and management of the rubber company of not acting to put an end to this menace.

The GAWU General Secretary while commenting on the issue said, “Government must immediately ban the export of the raw materials. We don’t even have enough so why do we export? Over 70, 000 jobs are currently at stake and these people will be left unemployed."

He added that "The plantation has also been heavily encroached by galamsey activities, and no authority is saying anything.”

Edward Kareweh stressed that foreigners now go to the farmers to buy the raw materials directly from them and export them in raw form.

“The capacity of all the rubber producers in Ghana is 100,000. However, the factories have the capacity to process 140, 000 as a country so what it means is that we can still expand plantations to get more rubber to meet the 140,000. This means we should be importing rubber, but government policy has it that anybody at all can export rubber from Ghana. So, what is happening is that foreigners now go to the farmers to buy the raw materials directly from them and export them in raw form,” he indicated.

The Ghana Rubber Estates Limited (GREL) rubber processing company falls under government's One District One Factory initiative.

Commissioned in 2020, the company employed about 7,500 direct and indirect workers.

The rubber company risks shutting down due to the unavailability of raw materials for processing.

ESA/NOQ

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