Story: Abdul Aziz
Great excitement and uproar from a teeming crowd greeted the unveiling of the Kantanka Obrempon limousine, manufactured by Apostle Kwadwo Safo, Head of Kristo Asafo Mission, at a ceremony at Awoshie, a suburb of Accra, yesterday.
The ceremony was the high point of this year’s Charity and Technology Exhibition held by the church.
The first people to take a ride in the limousine were ministers of state and one of the aspirants who participated in the contest for the flagbearership of the ruling New Patriotic Party.
They included Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Joe Baidoe-Ansah, Minister of Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and President's Special Initiatives, and Dr Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, a former Chief Executive of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.
Other dignitaries included judges, senior civil servants and policy makers.
In an address, Mr Baah-Wiredu said the government was determined to ensure that entrepreneurs and businessmen reaped the full benefit of the Golden Age of Business.
He said that would ultimately lead the country to achieve the desired middle-income status by 2015.
He said Apostle Safo's work was an epitome of a good private sector initiative and deserved all the support from the government and all patriotic Ghanaians to make the venture more productive.
He assured Apostle Safo and others in the private sector that the government would not relent in its efforts to ensure that business thrived by offering a congenial atmosphere for private initiative.
He urged Apostle Safo to consider exploring some initiatives and interventions, such as the Venture Capital Fund, to expand his business.
Mr Baidoe-Ansah said the government was focussing more on the small and medium enterprises sector, which constituted about 70 per cent of all the industrial establishments and contributed nearly 85 per cent of manufacturing employment.
He said his ministry was working in close collaboration with the Kristo Asafo Mission under the Technology Innovation Centre for Capital Goods Manufacture to establish an integrated foundry and tools training centre to produce tools as spare parts for the agricultural and industrial sectors.
For his part, Apostle Kwadwo Safo said he had placed emphasis on invention and high technology because no country could develop without a sound technological base.
He said the church’s Gomoa Mpota Technological Centre would recruit young graduates to train them in the production of high technology items.
The inventions on display at the exhibition included his first two vehicles, the latest limousine and an excavator.
No comments:
Post a Comment