Eric Botwe:
In areas where we needed to go down to allow the industry to succeed we did. Those were the times that cocobod was not able to pay for the farmgate prices.
What happened was that a lot of companies exited the industry and the market. Olam continued to be present and then we took on some of these losses.
And we used that as an opportunity to make a statement that Olam is not here only to milk the farmer and Olam is not here to milk the economy, Olam is here to provide partnership and to be able to grow to provide the necessary partnership to government so that all of us can succeed.
We are operating a lot of businesses, especially in cocoa, we have a lot of processing plants across the world and you look at the almost 60-65% of the world’s cocoa is between Ghana and Ivory Coast and therefore we need to really show love to our cocoa farmer, for the cocoa farmer to continuously have the confidence and the will to go to the cocoa farm the next morning. and that is what we have done.
We really are expanding. If you look at todays’ session, all the about 500-600 managers here almost about 100 are newly recruited managers of various fields coming from the universities of Ghana. It is a testimony to the fact that in the midst of the pandemic, you can still succeed. We think that this year 2021/22 financial year will be better. if you look at the cocobod has syndicated 1.5 billion dollars instead of the 1.3billion. so we are not contracting as an economy, we are rather expanding and that is enough testimony for us that our projected numbers of 200,000 tonnes minimum definitely will be done.
Ghana Cocoa Board says processes have commenced to access US$1.5 billion dollars in its annual syndicated loan for cocoa purchases in the 2021/22 crop year.
The facility is expected to be available from next month when Ghana’s major crop cocoa season begins.
This year’s COCOBOD cocoa syndicated loan is US$200 million more than the US$1.3 billion secured for the 2020/21 season and its Chief Executive, Joseph Boahen Aidoo explained why.
“We have exceeded our production target for the year and the money we took as loan didn’t take us anywhere,” Aidoo said.
According to him, talks with the banks and other partners are in progress, assuring a deal by the opening of the oncoming crop season.
“Very soon, we will sign the syndicated for the next crop season and I must say we have made arrangements to get the banks on board to chart this path” he noted.
Mr Aidoo was upbeat about the 2021/22 season buoyed by the historic achievement of the just ended crop year.
The world’s second-largest cocoa producer crossed the one-million-tonnes production mark for the first time in a decade, with data pointing to 1.1 million tonnes as of last week.
Meanwhile, the Cocobod Chief Executive has praised Olam Cocoa for its significant contribution towards exceeding the one million tonnes production target.
Mr Aidoo specifically expressed Cocobod’s appreciation to Olam for advancing payment to farmers ahead of the Board’s seed fund for Licensed Buying Companies.
The Cocobod boss made the remarks at the annual Olam Managers Conference at the Pentecost Convention Centre at Kasoa, Ghana’s Central Region.
The 2021 edition of the Managers’ Conference organized under the theme ‘Delivering FY21 in the face of current industry dynamics’, brought together some 500 managers of the business drawn from across Olam Cocoa’s operational areas.
The country head of Olam Ghana, Mr. Amit Agrawal, said, “Olam Ghana has, within a short period, birthed six different businesses which are all leading in market share. Olam is the fifth-largest company in Ghana, according to the latest Ghana Club 100 rankings, based on the size of revenue.”
He indicated that these milestones have been possible because of hard work, good processes, and the continuous promotion of the welfare of staff.
He said Olam’s foresight and investment in the digitisation of its business processes aided them to absorb the shocks of COVID19 that has adversely affected many businesses.
