Factory building; training centre; Afrifa tours and inspects; green carbon plant; baking of carbon blocks; Afrifa speaks; officials; Afrifa leaves by car.




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Background: The Ghanaian Commissioner for Finance, Brigadier Afrifa, recently paid a visit to the offices and smelter of the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) at Tema, near Accra.

Brigadier Afrifa was accompanied on his tour of the plant by the principal secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Mr. Gyasi Twum. The new VALCO smelter cost in the region of 92 million new cedis, and work on it began in December 1964. The first metal at the smelter was tapped by the Chairman of the National Liberation Council, General Ankrah, in November of last year.

The Executive Manager of VALCO, Mr. M.L.Alter, showed Brigadier Afrifa round the smelter, at which 1,300 Ghanaians are employed.

After visiting the training school, where new recruits are given a grounding in the trade, Brigadier Afrifa went to the free carbon plant. This is where the initial stages in the production of aluminium take place. The product from the green carbon plant is blocks of green carbon, each weighing about 800 lbs (approx 364 kilograms). The next stage is the baking of the blocks.

Brigadier Afrifa visited all the stages of the aluminium production, and in a speech to the workers at VALCO he called for a maximum effort to help put Ghana on an economic footing.