Rev John Fordjour inspecting the books at the press
The government stands justified for awarding the contract for printing textbooks for schools in the country to local printing companies, Reverend John Ntim Fordjour has said.
According to him, so far, the companies who won the bids had justified the confidence reposed in them by the government by delivering far ahead of schedule.
"Indeed me we at the Ministry of Education are satisfied with the quality of job done so far. Today we are here at Buck Press and we have inspected the machinery, the processes and the final product and we are satisfied with the quality of work done," he stressed.
Rev Fordjour disclosed this during a pre-inspection tour of the second batch of science textbooks being printed by Buck Press Limited in Accra.
Buck Press is one of the local companies awarded the contract to print the textbooks for the schools.
It is also printing quantities of the science textbooks and had so far printed more than 60per cent of the quantities awarded it and had promised to finish before the 90-day schedule.
The Deputy Minister explained that their assessment of work done so far showed that the books printed were comparable or even better than others which had been imported into the country.
He said the decision to award the contract to local printing houses has enhanced local capacity and revamping the printing industry as well as creating employment in the country.
"This single decision will go a long way to ensure that many more people are employed to fill up gaps in many more printing houses and many print houses that have been dormant for years will receive revitalisation," he emphasised.
He commended Buck Press for their level of efficiency and professionalism.
On his part, the Executive Director of Buck Press, Mr Francis Nyanin said they had so far produced about 60per cent of the contract and was on course to executing the whole contract.
He said the first batch of books delivered by his outfit was 123,000 copies and the second batch which was delivered yesterday was 173,273 books.
Mr Nyanin said his outfit had the capacity to deliver on local supplies and would be happy if government would look within more to develop the sector.
He assured that work was in progress and soon would deliver on the entire contract.
Reverend John Ntim Fordjour with one of the science textbooks with him is Francis Nyanin.