VIDEO: Juapong Chief Appeal For Revamp Of Volta Star Textiles Limited

The Chief of Juapong in the North Tongu Constituency in the Volta Region, Torgui Ahadzi Gboti ll, disclosed the reason why the Juapong Textiles Company has forcibly closed down.

The chief stated that the factory was shut down because the business could not afford to pay the employees’ salaries.

He disclosed that the IMC sought a bailout from the Export Development and Agricultural Investment Fund (EDAIF) to resolve the issue of salary arrears, but it did not yield the expected results.

“All efforts of the Interim Management Committee (IMC) of the company to meet the workers to dialogue on the issue had been unsuccessful”, he said.

He continued by saying that in addition to the company’s prolonged failure to pay employee salaries, it is also burdened with outstanding debts to the Ghana Textile Printing Company in Tema and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

At Juapong in the Volta Region, Torgui Ahadzi made this declaration in an interview with our correspondent Ebenezer Frimpong.He claims that the management’s and the chiefs’ combined attempts to get the business up and running have also been fruitless.

People in the surrounding area have no other option for employment than the company, according to Torgui Ahadzi Gboti.

Thus, he makes a plea to the government and other appropriate stakeholders to assist them in revitalizing Volta Star Textiles Ltd.

 

Watch the video below for more details.

 

 

 

Mr. Bright Ayittey, the head of the workers union of Volta Star Textiles Ltd., said that when the company shut down, the Industrial Commercial Workers Union (ICU), the mother organization, gave them instructions to go to the media about the situation to see if any stakeholders might assist.

The collapse of Juapong Textiles Company

The Juapong Textiles Company was established in 1968 to produce and supply grey baft to other textile industries in the country.

In 2004, the former majority shareholder, Vlisco BV of the Netherlands withdrew its interest in the joint venture to enable it to concentrate on its core textile printing business in the Ghana Textiles Printing (GTP).

The state acquired the Vlisco share and established Volta Star Textiles Limited (VSTL) as a limited liability company in 2007.

The company has been a strategic investment opportunity for the state because it offers employment to the formal and informal sector.

It has recruited a large army of employees over the years and continues to serve as a source of livelihood to residents of Juapong and the Tongu area, becoming the pride of the people of Tongu.

The company is the largest state investment in the industrial sector in the Volta Region and undoubtedly has remained a world-class producer of grey baft for GTP.

It processes lint cotton into spun yarn and subsequently into grey baft in its spinning and weaving mills respectively.

It has the biggest spinning and weaving capacity in the country, with an estimated 26 million yards a year. Its current cloth production is 936 tappet looms with an average loom speed of 164 reams per minute.

The ring spinning capacity is 35,000 spindles, with a spindle speed of 11,000 reams per minute turning out 3,700,000 kilogrammes of spun yarn a year.

Raw materials and market

The company has a reliable raw material base of lint cotton from Northern Ghana and imported supplements from neighbouring West African countries, with a ready market for finished products. But in recent times, workers of the company have gone haywire over the non-payment of their salary arrears for nine months, which has made them block the gates to the company and also lock out management.

 

 

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