The government has reclaimed 60 per cent of its shares which were sold to Penang Shipbuilding and Construction Company of Malaysia under a joint venture for the management of the Tema Shipyard and Drydock Corporation (TSDC). With its new business status, the government now has 100 per cent shareholding in the TSDC, which is a strategic national asset. The Director of Communications at the Presidency, Mr Koku Anyidoho, told journalists at the Castle, Osu in Accra Monday that “after suffering 13 years of gross mismanagement and a lot of agitation from workers, the government has succeeded in getting back the national asset”. “Cabinet at its last sitting on Thursday, May 10, 2012, put a final seal on the matter after a negotiated settlement,” he said. The government went into a joint venture agreement with Penang Shipbuilding and Construction Company in 1996 and divested 60 per cent of its interest in the TSDC as a measure to improve the standard of operations at the shipyard. Under the agreement, Penang was to rehabilitate the shipyard and also procure such funding as was reasonably required by the company for the operations of the TSDC. President John Evans Atta Mills began the process to reclaim the government’s 60 per cent shareholding in August 31, 2009 and has succeeded in negotiating a way out of the joint venture agreement. Mr. Anyidoho said the decision to urgently salvage such an asset was taken in the supreme interest of Ghana, particularly at a time when oil and gas had been discovered in commercial quantities and with sea traffic moving heavily in the country’s direction. Additionally, he said, the 100 per cent ownership of the TSDC would allow for the building of a middle-level skills industry, particularly in the areas of retrofitting and repairs. “With many Ghanaians studying abroad, all that manpower will be retained and the expertise imparted to others,” he said. Mr Anyidoho said just like the country’s founder, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, President Mills was of the strong conviction that “Ghana is capable of managing its own affairs”.