Accra, July 27, GNA – The International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group and the LMI Holdings, a diversified Ghanaian company, have signed a partnership to provide clean power and water to manufacturing companies in LMI-operated special economic zones in Ghana.

The move will support job creation, greener and sustainable and more competitive industrial development in the country.

Under the partnership, LMI will build a 16.8-megawatt rooftop solar plant that will power businesses operating in the Tema Free Zone on the outskirts of Accra, helping to contribute to Ghana’s climate agenda.

LMI Holdings will also a build a water treatment and distribution plant, with an initial capacity to treat 4,000 cubic meters per day to serve businesses in the new Dawa Industrial Zone – an industrial enclave intended to host a wide range of light and heavy industries across various sectors located along the Tema-Aflao Road.

As part of the partnership, IFC will provide LMI with a loan of up to $30 million from its own account to support LMI’s development plans in the two industrial zones while providing dozens companies with essential infrastructure needed to increase productivity and competitiveness.

LMI’s solar plant in the Tema Free Zone, compared with current thermal power on the national grid, is expected, together with the water plant, to reduce Ghana’s emission by approximately 10,000 tons of Carbon Dioxide equivalent annually.

The water will be Ghana’s first private production of reliable, high-quality water for industries.

Mr Kojo Aduhene, Chief Executive Officer of LMI said the company envisioned to industrialise Africa and that the 16.8-megawatt rooftop solar plant, the biggest in Africa, would supply electricity to the tenants in the Tema Free Zone enclave – a 10 per cent energy requirement in that area.

He said the power had been pre-assigned because a lot of companies in the industrial hub were in desperate need of solar, stressing that LMI had a goal of generating 1000-megawatts of solar by 2030.

As an indigenous Ghanaian company, Mr Aduhene said LMI was committed to the task of facilitating the country’s industrialisation ambition and boosting exports, and that the partnership with the IFC gave it the means and space to help in Ghana’s industrial drive.

He said the biggest challenge in the Dawa Industrial Zone was the lack of water, adding that the project would allow the company to build a water treatment plant to serve the industrial zone and the community as a whole.

The CEO said the company was the primary developer of the Tema Free Zone, which had more than 80 companies operating in various sectors, including building materials and agro-processing, adding that it had embarked on developing its second industrial park with a total area of 2,000 acres, as part of a new city development, Dawa City.

Mr Kyle Kelhofer, Senior Country Manager for Ghana, International Finance Corporation, explained that the project demonstrated how the private sector could bring effective solutions to development challenges and support job creation.

Through the investment, he said, the IFC was funding both infrastructure and water development in an industrial special economic zone in sub-Saharan Africa and particularly the IFC was supporting Ghana’s industrialisation ambitions for a greener and more sustainable future.

Over the last decade, Mr Kelhofer stated that the IFC had provided over $4 billion in financing and advisory services to Ghanaian companies in sectors, including agribusiness, education, energy, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, retail, tourism, and transport.

The Senior Country Manager said the strategy in Ghana had been focused on three primary pillars; access to finance, including banking and Small and Medium Enterprise finance, Agriculture and higher value-added manufacturing.

Source: Ghana News Agency