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The once-thriving Aboso Glass Factory in Tarkwa has reportedly been sold off to scrap dealers, with shocking images of its metal structures being dismantled and hauled away. Eyewitnesses have confirmed large trucks filling up with scrap metal, including vital transformers from the facility.
“I heard it has been sold, and they’re cutting away everything, even the transformers,” one source revealed to High School Africa’s Gosh, as the crew investigated the disturbing rumours. What they found confirmed the worst.
“It’s true, it’s all true. The government has sold the Aboso Glass Factory to scrap dealers,” said a worker at the site, who declined to be named.
Others at the scene described the disheartening sight of scrap collectors arriving with five trucks to cart off valuable metal parts. “They started cutting the metals for scrap. The trucks were filled with the wreckage,” one person added.
Founded on 5th February 1966 at the cost of 9 million cedis by Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the Aboso Glass Factory once played a key role in supplying bottles for the beverage industry. In its early years, it employed 500 workers, producing 18 million bottles, 2 million units of tableware, and 8 to 10 million square feet of sheet and louvre glass annually.
But after years of financial turmoil, the factory faltered and was eventually sold off under the name Tropical Glass Factory to Mr. Gilchrist Olympio. However, due to financial constraints, the company collapsed.
In April 1998, the factory was restored, running at 85 to 90 percent capacity with 250 workers on three shifts. In 2003, the Aboso Glass Factory was placed on a divestiture listing after ECG ceased power supply to the plant.
There was hope in 2017 when the government promised to revive the facility with investor support. In 2019, GIHOC Distilleries Company took over, with plans to get the factory back on its feet. But now, it seems those promises have been dashed, and the once-proud factory is being dismantled, piece by piece, for scrap under a regime that promised “One District, One Factory.”
Maxwell Kofi Jumah, Managing Director of GIHOC Distilleries, confirmed the factory’s fate, stating that the current developments were part of a request from new investors. However, he was tight-lipped about the details.
In a typically brazen response, Mr. Jumah denied offloading the company for a paltry GH¢8 million but declined to elaborate on the arrangement with the supposed investor(s), or why the factory’s metals were being carted off for scrap.
The sad truth is that the Aboso Glass Factory, once a symbol of Ghana’s industrial ambition, has now been sold for scrap, leaving the country to reckon with the loss of another vital piece of its industrial heritage.
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