 Welcome back to the YouTube channel. It's your favorite village boy Mr. Ghana Baby and I'm back again with another mind-blowing and eye-opening episode. If you see me this excited, it's because people are solving my problem for me. I have been telling you that Africa just need one thing that is industrial revolution. It's time for us to make things in Africa and this is what SPS is doing and that is why I'm here. If today is your first time seeing this face on your screen, my name is Mr. Ghana Baby, the one and only annoying YouTuber in Africa. Do me a favor, like the video, subscribe and be part of this awesome family but know how I always do it. When I get to a manufacturing plant like this, I just don't go to the factory. I go and find out who is the man behind it because most of you don't believe that Africans own staffs on the continent and I am here to prove you wrong. Come with me, let's go meet the founder and the CEO of SPS. Come with me. Daddy, it's such a honor to meet you. I mean you've done something incredible that I think so many Ghanaians don't even know who you are. People are saying we cannot make it in Africa but you managed to build Ghana's first and the biggest solar panel manufacturing company in Ghana, not anywhere. They say we can't make it but you managed to do this. How did you manage to do this? It's a very interesting question for us but I want to trace this back to how I was raised. Certain values that I got from my parents but one thing that my parents taught me was responsibility. Growing up, that became my inspiration. If my mother would tell me sometimes that I look around Burkume, by the way I am from Burkume, the Bono region. It used to be brown for Burkume but it's not the Bono region. It's a go around and see the sort of development out there. These were developments that had been put up by farmers and that kind of thing. Going through life, I felt I should be able to accomplish something that will stand the test of time. I used responsibility as being my God throughout my life. Though I went to school, I didn't study the way I would have loved to study. I wasn't in any way bothered by that because it so happened that I also turned out to be a faith person. Therefore, I started relying so much on the Word of God that encouraged me that no matter whatever you are, God is no respecter of persons. Whatever you desire to do, you just have to believe in it and then you will get it. So that actually led the way. My name is Wadamaya and I am from Taqradi. Our audience watching us right, I don't know who you are and please tell us your name. You've already told us that you're from Bono but you can still tell us your name. My name is Francis Okomabuatim. I was born to a Parmong chief then who later became the first president of Brown for House of Chiefs. At any point in tiring God and I decided that I'm tired of God and I want to leave God and then leave the country. I never ever thought about that. Leaving Ghana to go and live in somebody else's land was something far from the equation, far, far, far from the equation. For some reason, I remember when I got married and my mother-in-law said to me, Okomabuatim, you have to consider travelling because most people were travelling. People who felt they couldn't make it here in this country were living in the country. And I said that I can see a lot of opportunities around me and therefore I didn't see the need to travel to live outside Ghana. So I simply pursue my goals and here we are today. I know we are here to talk about SPS but apart from SPS, I just wanted to know, this is just a simple question that I want to ask. Can you give me a random number? How many companies have already established in this country, Ghana? If you've never left but you're here, how many companies, apart from SPS, have you established any other company? Not even the name but how many companies have you established? Seriously, SPS was born out of a mother company and there are other four subsidiaries. But you know, somehow some way, sometimes it becomes a bit challenging. In the kind of society that we find ourselves in, you always have to make sure that you are not too much known. And Nevada has been part of my strategy, you know, not to expose myself too much out there. You know, don't talk too much, you know, but spend more time to listen and to identify what opportunities are out there. But I just want to know yet, why solar panels? Not any other thing. Your question is, why did I go there to produce solar panels? It's one of the things that comes as a vision. And I remember I lost my dad, you know, in 2003. I had to travel, you know, dead at night, to my hometown in Burukum, which is about 250 miles away from Accra. You know that there are a lot of these checkpoints, you know, barriers and things like that. I always hate one of them. So that infuriated me in a way. And I said, but why can't we have lights around, you know? Then I remember that the national grid cannot be extended to those areas. So the concept of solar renewable energy came to mind. So that is how it started. So I decided to pursue it. But one thing with me is that I think about lives, you know, think about lives. I just wanted to make sure that people in the rural areas do benefit from such a project. So that brought this into mind that I would need some kind of a sponsor, you know, seeking for sponsorship. And fortunately, you know, Kukubor came out with a similar concept. And so it was like we started introducing solar street lights, you know, the Kukubor growing communities and share not catchment areas in the north. Okay. So when I started and I was going to China, I started looking at the way they were doing their things there. That's all. It's panels. The panels which forms the biggest component of having to put the lights together. So it would be a good idea if we can just produce them locally. You know, it took me a bit of time. Did a bit of research on that. Made some one in Germany. And then that later led me to Japan. And the rest, as I've already said, is history. The CEO of SPS. It's a pleasure to meet you. Oh, it's a pleasure to meet you too, by the way. Your dad is telling me that you are the one who is taking care of the company right now. Well, what am I saying? I'm doing my best. I'm trying my best, you know, to live up to the big shoes that's been given to me. What is your name, man? I am Ophori Buatun. Ophori Buatun? Yeah. Ophori Buatun, you sound like American. I'm Ophori Buatun. Oh, you based in America before? Well, yes, yes, I did. A good majority of my schooling was in America. And even, you know, my middle school and high school. And a lot of my upbringing. I always tell people that I partially was raised in both Ghana and America. Because I did spend up to when I was ten years old in Ghana. And then eventually opportunity came that moved us, you know, to the States. And I spent pretty much all the rest of my life there. You know what I want you to do for me? Sure. You need to tell me all we need to know about SPS. All right. Let's say that SPS simply put provides products designed for Africa made in Ghana. And SPS is by far trying to push yourself into the arena of being one of the product developers within electronics. So one of the first things that we started with is producing solar panels here. We started producing solar panels back in 2011. Whoa, you're producing solar panels, I mean locally made. Locally made here in Ghana. It should be the first manufacturing plant in Ghana. Yes it is. We've been out in the market for quite some time. We would not start just by our producing panels. We started off by, you know, importing them and kind of developing the market. And then we saw the opportunity that in order for any African company to be able to live up to its hopes, it needs to have its own product, you know, and the product needs to be designed for Africa. Because Africa is such a wonderful place and our circumstances are different. So you can take what is in Europe or what is in Asia or North America and say that you're pushing into Africa. We don't want that anymore. We want tailor made. So the solar panels in here are locally made by Ghanians. Exactly. This is incredible. You know why I'm excited today? Because we have a solar panel plant in Ghana. Yes, we do. So which means that you guys are adding value to the country. All I want to know is like how many projects can SPS boost off? Oh man, so many. The few that I've listed, the Jubilee House, the CEDA government for Ghana, Ecobank, Ghana, their branches, even Ministry of Education, they came, you know, they put out a project which was to put the computer labs onto solar, especially in the rural areas, some places really don't have power. By kids nowadays, everybody is digital, you know, and everybody needs a computer and needs to be able to have access to the internet. So we were glad to help in that project. It was subcontracted to us and that was amazing. And most of all, the other one that I love is being able to use a solar solution to provide water, simple water. There's a borehole project that we've done and it covers pretty much all the regions. We've done close to about a thousand boreholes. You could just imagine. I mean like boreholes, that use solar? Yes. That's perfect. But why are you guys using air conditioning? I don't power it by solar too. So these air conditions are inverter air conditions and we have a solution also for air conditions. We have the conventional air conditions and we have the solar air conditions. And they all work just virtually the same. You know, I was just kidding. Do we have something called solar air conditions? Yes, we do. We do. Are you kidding me? Where are you taking me to now? Alright, so it's an honor that you're here and I thought that once you're here, let's see this. Because every time anybody sees this, they gape. And I'm sure, you know, just to kind of allure you so that nothing happens to you. We're taking a walk into our ultra-fitted factory where we produce the solar panels here in Ghana. So like I said earlier, it's designed for Africa, but made in Ghana. Let's step in here and let me show you a couple of things. Whoa! Yeah, welcome to the factory. This is huge. Yes, yes. I mean, thank you. I mean, there's been a long way coming and there's been hard work to even put together something like this. You know, this field is very, very important for us to be at our best and also provide one of the highest quality. You know, like I was outside. So me coming inside here, like I'm kind of blown away. Exactly. That's actually just a simple question. Yeah. I want to know what is the worth of this factory? You know, in putting the entire factory together plus our supply chain and logistics and everything, it's about $50 million. And it hasn't, well, we're still working on even adding more to it. We realize that the demand within the country and also within the neighboring countries are increasing. And we've actually expanded the factory from 32 megawatts to about 165. We hope that come next year we'll be able to finish up with the expansion. Don't tell me this is what you manufacture again? Yes, it is. So this panel, it's about 72 cells. And they were all produced right here in Ghana. And this panel is normally used for the larger type of projects. And then these are a little bit smaller in case there are smaller projects. Maybe you want your pump or something like that to be powered by solar. Or maybe you want a streetlight or so. Then we find ways and means to kind of cut it to suit the purpose that the project is for. How many watts do you people produce in a day? So the entire factory's capacity at the moment is at 32 megawatts. And we are in an expansion period. With the 32 megawatts we get a little bit over 165,000 of these panels yearly. If you do the math and you kind of back it up it's almost about maybe 100 to about 200 daily. See this factory also is fully conditioned because for us to be considered a world-class factory we have to test our panels below 25 degrees Celsius. And part of the production line also requires us to control the temperature in the factory. So the factory is fully conditioned. We always maintain the temperature below 25 degrees Celsius. And again it's relatively clean because we want to make sure as we make the panels we don't have any dirt or dust that goes inside the cells and short circuits the cells. I know I came here at the wrong time because I've not seen anybody in here. Is it because the company is upgrading or something? Yes, we actually in the process of upgrading the factory and also we've got a new equipment set that is better technology can do a whole lot more than the current equipment set. So we actually transition from the old equipment set to the new equipment set. And the new equipment set also gives us about five times the production capacity as the old one. We're glad you gave me the chance to speak to you. We have so many young Africans watching us right now. If you have a message for young Africans living in Africa right now so many of us get tired of this continental thing that we can't make it, we want to leave. If you have a message to tell us what would that message be? The message would simply be don't give up. I mean just work hard to identify what you can do to identify opportunities and when you have been able to lay your hands on something that you think you can do just go out, all out and make sure that by the deed of hard work and honesty you will get there. If you had a chance to change something in Africa what would it be? In Africa can I generalize that I don't think so but specifically here in Ghana because you have to make sure that wherever you are the place that you stay feels better than anywhere else before you can just step out there. But what I see in this country is that the opportunities are there but is the system that is the problem and when I talk about the system what am I referring to? Now it looks like politics seems to be taking over everything so young men who either too can sit down and reflect on what to do for their living you know you find these young men involving politics and to me I don't know for how long this is going to go on but if we have our till for instance recently during the primaries I was a bit worried you know had candidates aging from 30 years to 33 years to me I felt it was it was a big worrisome because I was personally worried about that because I know that some people do not have the requisite experience to govern you understand why am I saying this I've been there before I've been 30 years I've been 33 years now I'm 71 years so there's a host of experience that I have okay and I look at these guys and I say what sort of experience what sort of knowledge are they going to share you see most of them haven't had any exposure maybe straight from university they'll get into politics I don't know what drives them into politics but it's something that I think we really have to be very careful with the way we are encouraging our youth to get into politics at what age do you think that someone is qualified to be involved that's a very good question it's not so much about age not so much about age but I'm talking about exposure you understand I mean I think it's what I believe that every every person who wants to do politics must have you shouldn't only be exposed to what is in your country go as you have found out how things are done level it up with how things are done in your own country and then try to see it something will come up that will be useful for your country now I get your point you understand what I'm saying so the other issue is our land tenure is something that does not help people like us who are generational thinkers to be very much interested in doing meaningful investment in this country what am I saying how can you you know the cost of land very expensive here in this country you want a decent land for a project you need about a million US dollars to do that you want about two acres of land that is the sort of money you have to be looking at that amount can even build you the factory you understand and not only that but then the lease on it sometimes you have certainly this is not going for 30 years and 50 years something that you bear witness to during your lifetime it doesn't make sense to me so if you are thinking about the future it becomes a bit challenging to take that out do you believe Africa is the future why not because we seem to have everything about the way we manage our faces it's key it's key say thank you so much for talking to me thank you