A company plans to invest in one of two machines, machine A and Machine B. Machine A costs 80000 cedis and has a salvage value of 7000. Machine B on the other hand costs 120000 cedis and has a salvage value of 12000 cedis. Both machines have a useful life of five years. The year end cash flows for both machines are as given below
\begin{tabular}{|l|r|r|r|r|r|}
\hline Period & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 \\
\hline Machine A & 25000 & 45000 & 40000 & 20000 & 19000 \\
\hline Machine B & 30000 & 50000 & 50000 & 50000 & 27000 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
Assuming interest rate is zero, the payback period for machine $\mathrm{A}$ is years

Step 1 ：Define the cost of Machine A as \(\text{cost}_A = 80000\) cedis.

Step 2 ：Define the cash flows of Machine A for each year as \(\text{cash_flows}_A = [25000, 45000, 40000, 20000, 19000]\).

Step 3 ：The payback period is the time it takes for an investment to generate an amount of income or cash equal to the cost of the investment.

Step 4 ：We can find the payback period by adding the cash flows for each year until the total is equal to or greater than the cost of the machine.

Step 5 ：By adding the cash flows for the first three years, we get a total cash flow of \(\text{total_cash_flow} = 110000\) cedis, which is greater than the cost of Machine A.

Step 6 ：Therefore, the payback period for Machine A is \(\text{payback_period}_A = 3\) years.

Step 7 ：Final Answer: The payback period for machine A is \(\boxed{3}\) years.