The Board Chairman of COCOBOD, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, says Ghana is preparing for a major transition from exporting raw cocoa beans to processing more of its premium cocoa locally as part of a national push for full value addition.
He made the remarks during a visit to the partly state-owned West African Mills Company (WAMCO) in Takoradi, where he assured management that processing companies will receive adequate bean supplies to expand output and support the country’s ambition to multiply cocoa revenue.
Mr. Ofosu Ampofo explained that the Board’s visit was to familiarize itself with WAMCO’s operations, noting that COCOBOD’s 40 percent stake in the company gives it a direct interest in its performance. He said the Board held detailed discussions with the company’s leadership to understand their operational challenges and identify areas where support is needed.
“First of all, our visit here as a Board was to familiarize ourselves with the operations of WAMCO, of which the Cocobod has 40 % shares and so we have some interest here
“We have also had some roundtable discussions with them to find out what are some of the challenges that the organization is facing and I believe that we have had enough information to enable us to go back and digest and see how best we can assist the company to survive and to ensure that the task players money which is constituted 40 percent is also productive for the purpose and benefit of the entire Ghanaian population.”
According to him, the time has come for Ghana to move away from its long dependence on exporting raw beans and instead focus on local processing, which offers far greater economic benefits.
He revealed that processing cocoa into secondary products can triple its value compared to selling raw beans, adding that Ghana must leverage its globally admired premium cocoa to produce more chocolate, confectioneries, and other derivatives.
“We believe that the time has come and for a lot more of our raw beans to be processed because this is only through value addition that we will create employment for our teaming on employee youth. We would then add value to the raw cocoa beans and therefore also increase profitability because the information that I’ve had is that if we process the cocoa from the raw beans to secondary matter, we are able to triple the benefit of this, which means that how you sell a bag of cocoa, if you process it, you get about three times the value of the raw bean.
“For me, that is where we should be going. There’s a lot of potential in the cocoa industry, but the time has come for us to reduce our dependence on exporting raw cocoa beans. The world is advanced and there’s a need for us to also take advantage of the premium cocoa that we produce in the country. Everybody wants a bit of Ghana premium cocoa in the form of a chocolate, in the form of confectionaries and other derivatives that can also be process into other secondary products.”
He said one major challenge WAMCO faces is limited bean supply from the Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC), leaving the factory operating at only 20 to 30 percent capacity. Increasing bean allocation, he noted, would significantly boost productivity.
He explained that expanding processing capacity would create more jobs for the country’s youth and directly support the government’s envisioned 24-hour economy, as WAMCO already operates a three-shift system.
“That is what we want to do. We have realized the challenge, know the challenges is that the supply of raw beans to them from CMC is making them producing at about between 20 to 30 percent capacity and we believe that if more beans is provided for WAMCO, WAMCO can increase their productivity.
“They can increase their workforce because it is all within the 24 hour economy that we are talking about. They run trade shift system and so the more people come in, the more production goes up, the more economy boosted and the more employment that we generate for our people and that’s exactly what we intend to do.”
Source: Elvisanokyenews.com
