Meet the man who lost everything after building Ghana's biggest brewery, Guinness Ghana
- J. K. Siaw, a renowned Ghanaian businessman set up Tata Brewery Ltd which is now known as Guinness Ghana Brewery
- He was also known as a very philanthropic man who took great care of his workers and also embarked on many social intervention programmes
- However, during the revolution led by the late JJ Rawlings, the entrepreneur unfairly fell victim and got sent into exile where he died
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Joshua Kwabena Siaw, a renowned Ghanaian businessman fell from grace to grass after establishing what still remains the biggest brewery in the country.
Reports sighted by YEN.com.gh on Face2FaceAfrica.com and Ghanaianmuseum.com indicate that the fall of the entrepreneur popularly known as J. K. Siaw was not his fault.
Siaw grew up and worked as a trained teacher until he decided to start a different kind of business for himself.
He took a loan of £50 (Ghana’s pre-independent currency was the British pound sterling) to start his new business venture as a cocoa broker after being a teacher for many years.
Source: UGC
Within four months, Siaw realized £600 as profit and the enterprise started booming bit by bit until in the late 1960s, he successfully obtained permission to start a brewery.
Tata Brewery Ltd was birthed by J. K. Siaw and commissioned on 30 January 1973.
It is reported that J. K. Siaw was also widely known for his philanthropic work including building a clinic for the society, a canteen with high subsidies, free vaccines and free transport for many people.
However, during the revolution that was led by the late, Jerry John Rawlings, the entrepreneur unfairly became a victim and was sent to exile.
He died in London while in exile, in October 1986. His body was flown back to Ghana in December that year.
According to Ghanaweb.com, a committee established in 1982 to investigate confiscated assets found that:
“the confiscation of all the assets of J. K. Siaw, owner of the former Tata Brewery, because he engaged in over-invoicing and under-invoicing during the Acheampong period was a travesty of justice"
Tata Brewery Ltd, which was later known as Achimota Brewery Company (ABC) is now called Guinness Ghana Brewery
In another interesting report by YEN.com.gh, Ghanaian mother along with her two daughters and a grandchild has been reportedly imprisoned for three months for eating corn.
This was revealed by Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, a Ghanaian law expert who said he watched a video of the woman and her descendants in the cells.
The professor, popularly known on Facebook as Kwaku Azar, complained about the unfairness of the Ghana justice system in his remarks on the sad story.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
