Happy Sunshine Gives Safety Assurance

Management of Happy Sunshine Company Limited (HSCL) has assured residents of Kuntunse in the Ga East Municipality of the Greater Accra Region of its commitment to strictly adhere to the environmental laws of the country.

The tomato paste manufacturing company has therefore put in place measures to integrate the Kuntunse Community into its operations and also meet all requirements of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

And as part of efforts to meet this aspiration, a durbar was organized by the company as a stakeholder engagement to elicit community concerns and afford the company the opportunity to explain its operations to the chiefs and people of the area.

Speaking at the durbar, Mr. Mars Du, Managing Director of HSCL, indicated his company’s commitment to investing in Ghana and the readiness to support government in its efforts to bridge the unemployment gap.

He also assured of the company’s vision to boost the industrialization drive of Ghana and support the one-district-one factory policy.

“In a bid to meet the requirements of the EPA before final approval, Happy Sunshine has embarked on a number of reforms, including refitting of the factory’s chimneys, by increasing its length as required by the EPA to prevent any direct emissions into the community. The company has also constructed a water waste management facility to properly manage liquid waste emanating from the operations of the factory”, he observed.

Mars Du further hinted that HSCL has reserved about 70% of employment opportunities for the local people, adding it is also the medium term goal of the company to train the local people to run, manage and maintain the equipment as their Chinese counterparts transfer the technical know-how on to them.

The chief of Kuntunse, Nii Noi Nortey, used the occasion to plead with the government and the EPA to, as a matter of urgency, allow HSCL resume operations since it had worked on all the environmental concerns they initially had.

He lamented that many of the residents who were employed by the company have, since the closure, been unemployed; stressing that this is creating a lot of economic hardship for them.

Nii Noi Nortey and his elders, together with opinion leaders, members of the clergy, and representatives of the security services, as well as residents of Kuntunse, were in attendance.

It will be recalled that, in the normal course of its duty, the EPA halted the operations of the company due to some environmental concerns, and directed that the company embarks on some facelift projects and also engage the community to secure their consent and support before any production could commence.

Other environmental improvement projects embarked upon by the company include the covering of drainage facilities, acquisition of land directly opposite the factory to serve as customer parking space and increasing the factory’s wall to keep within bounds any noise generated by the factory.

Residents of Kuntunse say they are now elated by the reforms and are further assured of their safety. Out of 162 respondents surveyed by the direction of the EPA, 156 (96.89) of them support the location of the factory in their community while 143 residents have no issues with any environmental pollution.