The 1D1F company that can’t be traced 

When the Akufo-Addo administration released a list of 58 “completed” companies under the One District One Factory (1D1F) initiative in November 2019, Skyline Steel Company Limited was number nine on it.

According to the document released by the government, Skyline Steel was located in Ejisu in the Ashanti Region.

Its product line was stated as manufacturing steel roofing tiles. It was also stated that the company has 45 direct employees.

However, exactly three years later, The Fourth Estate cannot find the Skyline Steel Company Limited on the ground. Neither are officials of the 1D1F Secretariat able to provide details of its location and contact details.

In November 2022, The Fourth Estate combed through Ejisu, which hosts seven companies under the initiative, according to the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

The search for Skyline Steel Company Limited was both physical and virtual. When The Fourth Estate reporter could not locate the company after hours of search, he spoke to workers at three well-known roofing sheet manufacturers in Ejisu— DBS Industries, Rocksters Roofing Systems, and Agyeiwaa Memorial Company Limited— and asked about the location of Skyline.

It yielded no result.

William Yidu, a worker at Rocksters Roofing Systems, told The Fourth Estate that Skyline Steel Company Limited could be an “agent.” This he said meant that the company could be posing as a manufacturer of roofing materials but was instead purchasing the product from actual producers and selling to clients.

He added that there were a lot of such entities posing as roofing sheet manufacturing companies in Ejisu.

No footprints

Moreover, a thorough search online to find a digital footprint of Skyline Steel Company Limited proved futile.

The search, however, found a company called Skyline Steel founded in 1972 in the United States of America.

The Ghanaian company could not be found on Google Maps, unlike some of the other 1D1F companies listed as being located in Ejisu.

After the rather hectic search for the company, The Fourth Estate contacted the Director of the Ghana Enterprise Agency at Ejisu-Juaben Municipal Assembly, Eric Oti Nyarko, to ask if he knew the location of the company.

“No,” he responded.

“It could be that it is a start-up, but they couldn’t access the facility under the programme. It could also be that they didn’t take the name out of the list,” he explained.

To ascertain the veracity of this, The Fourth Estate sent a Right to Information (RTI) request to the Ministry of Trade and Industry asking for the list of all factories built under the 1D1F initiative, and facilities that were operational.

The ministry’s response listed Skyline Steel Company Limited as a 1D1F beneficiary that is currently operational.

‘Bring a letter for the contact of the company’

To validate this claim, a reporter from The Fourth Estate visited the office of the 1D1F Secretariat on February 22, 2023, to enquire about the location and contact details of Skyline Steel Company Limited.

Kwame Aboagye, an official of the secretariat, which is located within the Ministry of Trade and Industry, said he could not give out the contact of the company unless he is authorized by his superior at work.

He however offered the reporter three email contacts—1D1F’s official email, his own official email, and another that may be used to formally request for the information.

On February 28, 2023, a week after the email was sent, the secretariat had not responded. The Fourth Estate called Mr. Aboagye to follow up on the matter. He said the reporter should have sent a letter addressed to the Chief Director of the Ministry of Trade and Industry instead of an email. The Fourth Estate therefore readdressed the letter to the Chief Director. It was sent in person to the ministry on March 1, 2023.

After two weeks, there was still no response. The Fourth Estate went to the secretariat on March 14th to check on the status of the request.

An official of the secretariat who introduced herself simply as Lilian, and preferred not to disclose her designation, said the secretariat had not received the letter yet. Mr. Aboagye was kind enough to reveal to The Fourth Estate that Lilian was “in charge” of 1D1F companies in the Ashanti region.

When asked if the secretariat could provide the contact details of Skyline Steel Company Limited within two days, Lilian responded:

“Kwame [Aboagye] is here. So, once it is ready, Kwame will just give you a call.”

Neither the ministry nor the secretariat had responded to the letter as of April 3, 2023. The Fourth Estate again called Mr. Aboagye on April 3, 2023.

He promised he would alert Lilian to call The Fourth Estate reporter. But he did not say when this will happen.

As of yesterday, April 23, 60 days after The Fourth Estate began its enquiries into the location and contact details of Skyline Steel Company Limited, the 1D1F Secretariat is yet to respond.

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