Business News of Tuesday, 11 July 2017
Source: citibusinessnews.com
2017-07-11
William Quaitoo, Deputy Minister for Agriculture
The Ministry of Agriculture has indicated that delisting the Cocoa Processing Company(CPC) from the Ghana Stock Exchange will roll back government’s effort at encourage the private sector participation the industry.
The workers of the Cocoa Processing Company called for the company to be delisted after years of performing poorly on the bourse.
Speaking to Citi Business News on the issue, the Deputy Minister for Agriculture, William Quaitoo insisted that the demand will not aid government’s agenda of adding value to cocoa beans.
“I don’t know how that will help them if they delist from the stock exchange. They may want to bring their debt portfolio down. Government will need capital from the private sector which is important,” he said.
Mr. Quaitoo was of the view that the workers were pushing for delisting due to the unattractiveness of the company on the bourse.
“The private sector who has invested must exercise patient. Their main challenge is that they have invested lot of machinery in the company. The main challenge with CPC is that they are not able to get the beans to process, that is the main challenge. So if COCOBOD is able to provide the beans, which we have promised to do then they can operate and pay their debt,” he observed.
Mr. Quaitoo stressed that, there must be departure from the old ways to revamp CPC and make it attractive.
He pointed out that the world market price of cocoa beans have been falling hence Ghana must add value to its beans before export.
“You see the international market price of cocoa beans is going down and we are all selling our cocoa at the international market . Economics will tell you that the higher the supply, then price falls. So the strategy is that let’s cut down on the quantity of cocoa we send to the international market. So we will produce and feed the CPC,” he said.
