Kumasi Shoe Factory can produce 1.8m shoes a year

Kumasi Shoe Factory says it is more than capable of pro­ducing high-quality footwear for all the security agen­cies in Ghana, including private se­curity companies.

This follows the directive by the Minister of Defence to the military, air force, navy and the armed forces to stop the importation of their security safety footwear and purchase it from the local producer.

The company produces steel-toe cup oil-resistant and safety footwear for mining companies, construction companies and breweries. It also pro­duces sandals for schools, as well as shoes and sandals for other interested institutions.

Acting General Manager of De­fence Industries Holding Company Limited (DIHOC), operators of the Kumasi Shoe Factory, Mr Kingsley Asiedu Koranteng disclosed this to The Finder in an interview.

Established in 1960, the shoe fac­tory, located on a 35.75-acre land, pro­duced footwear and rubber sheets under an agreement signed by Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, and Czechoslovakia in 1961. It col­lapsed in the late 1970s.

It has been resuscitated, following a joint partnership between a Czech Republic-based company, Knights, acting through its subsidiary, Knight Ghana Limited, and the Defence In­dustries Holding Company Limited (DIHOC), owned by the Ghana  Armed Forces (GAF).

Mr Koranteng stated that the com­pany has the capacity to produce be­tween 4,000 and 5,000 pairs of shoes a day, translating into 1,800,000 shoes a year.

He reiterated that the figures could be doubled if the need arises as more people wouid be employed to run a day-and-night shift system.

In terms of quality, Mr Koranteng said the company uses quality leather imported from India and Argentina, which are some of the best in the world.

He emphasised that the company has staff with the requisite skills and state-of-the-art machines to produce some of the best security footwear, saying the quality assurance depart­ment also ensures that the finished products are of international standards.

According to Mr Koranteng, it is the vision of the company to produce high-quality footwear and export to other West African countries by 2018.

He, however, said that there is an urgent need for government to take af­firmative action to help grow indige­nous companies in the country.

Such actions, he opined, could help stem the unemployment situation in the country and help build the Ghana­ian economy.