Management of Pioneer Food Cannery (PFC) has advised Ghana Protein, a fishmeal company at Tema, to work hard and obtain raw materials in order to stay in business instead of blaming the firm for its woes.
At a press conference in Accra, Yaw Amaka-Otchere, acting Head of Human Resources, PFC, said the fish meal plant was part of the company’s vertical integration growth strategy.
Explaining further, Mr. Amaka-Otchere stated that Ghana Protein sometime last year wrote to the Minister of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) stating inter alia that “…the plant is currently processing only at 43 tons per day instead of the 360 tons installed capacity. This is because since completion of the plant, we have been unable to secure the necessary raw materials from all the sources we were assured of except Pioneer Food Cannery Ltd (PFC), which is supplying us with part (average 40 percent) of their waste.”
He revealed that Ghana Protein also stated in the same letter that “…again the plant at Ghana Protein took into account the total fish waste generated in Ghana currently and possible future expansion.”
According to him, PFC never engineered the demise of another company.
“Just for the sake of argument, even if PFC decides to give up its dream of the Fish Meal and give Ghana Protein all its ‘fish waste’, it is only a third of its capacity and what happens to the two-thirds shortfall and how many companies can still survive on 30 percent capacity operation other than create greater redundancy through under-capacity in the long run, with resulting high unit costs to compensate for the unused, under-utilised 70 per cent capacity?”
Further explaining a request from Ghana Protein to PFC, he said Ghana Protein’s offer to purchase fish offals was not accepted immediately as PFC at that time had other Ghanaian customers, including indigenous clients operating as a cooperative trading with PFC.
“After much debate over prices, price adjustments, logistical details and ways of working, PFC commenced supplies to Ghana Protein in September 2007 with a proportion of its total offals while continuing with its other customers.
“It must be said that there has been no official commercial contract signed between PFC and Ghana Protein to date except for a Letter of Intent used to facilitate this transaction from the very beginning and which was never intended to be binding.”
Voted Best Tuna Processing Plant for 2010 & 2011, PFC last week recruited 200 young, able workers to add to the existing 1,600 strong workforce to meet its strategic targets. The 200 people were chosen from an enthusiastic crowd of over 500 unemployed youth, who responded to the invitation.
By Samuel Boadi