Government, through the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC), has placed Bonsa Tyre Company Limited, GIHOC Glass Company Limited and GIHOC Footwear Company Limited on divestiture. This is to allow investors, both local and foreign, to make substantial investments into these institutions, operate them and make profits. It is also to forestall any further wasting of the industrial, as well as landed properties of the three entities, which have collapsed. DIC, which made this known to the media recently, called on interested investors to contact it for prompt registration and preparation of guidelines for a business plan. According to DIC, BTCL, with a capacity to produce 1,230 tyres and 960 inner tubes a day, was established in 1963 to manufacture automobile tyres. At its inception, Firestone acquired 60 percent stake in it, while Government retained the remaining 40 percent. In 1981, Firestone sold its 60 percent stake back to the Government. This saw the company undergoing revitalization under the “Bonsa Tyre Rehabilitation Project” with a US$30.7 million credit facility in 1990. Located at Bonsaso in the Western Region, BTCL is 16 kilometers south of Tarkwa on the main Takoradi and Tarkwa road. Its catchment area, Bonsaso is an agricultural community with a population of 8,000. The people are mainly engaged in the cultivation of rubber, oil palm and food crop farming as well as small-scale mining. The company additionally produces retread compounds and rubber cement for tyre retreading as well as various diversified rubber products. There is also extra factory space for expansion. On GIHOC Footwear Factory, located along the Lake Road in Chirapatre in the Kumasi Metropolis of Ashanti, DIC noted it was established in the early 1960s under former President Kwame Nkrumah’s seven-year Development Plan. “It initially had an installed capacity of 601,000 pairs of assorted footwear per annum on 16-hour double shift system schedule. The factory has a total of 10 sites, comprising industrial and residential facilities/properties that cover a total of 35.75 acres. A greater part of the company’s property is structurally sound, but requires rehabilitation and redecoration.” Commenting on GIHOC Glass Factory complex, established in 1964, it said a few of its additional structures were constructed in the late 1970s and 1980s. It is situated along the main Tarkwa-Aboso road, about 1.5 km south of the Aboso Township in the Western region of Ghana. The factory is close to the railway line connecting Huni Valley and Tarkwa. Each section is equipped with highly structured plant, machinery, equipment and accessories. Apart from one of the bungalows which had its entire roof razed down by rainstorm, the entire property is structurally sound with few defects. The committee therefore appealed to Ghanaians, especially those living abroad who are financially-endowed, to step out and take advantage of the opportunities to help retain the benefits that would accrue from the operation of the entities. Story by Samuel Boadi/Business Guide/Ghana