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Board members of the Cocoa Processing Company with Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister of Food and Agriculture after the board’s inauguration. Picture: BENEDICT OBUOBI
Board members of the Cocoa Processing Company with Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister of Food and Agriculture after the board’s inauguration. Picture: BENEDICT OBUOBI

New CPC board charged to transform company

A nine-member board of the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC) was inaugurated in Accra yesterday to help transform the company.

The board, chaired by Dr Kwaku Owusu Baah, has as its other members, Nana Agyenim Boateng, Managing Director of the CPC; Mr Ben Abdullah Banda, MP for Ofinso South, and Mrs Philomena Okyere, a retired banker as government nominees to the board.

Other members of the board are Mr Emmanuel Ray Ankrah, Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Finance & Administration, COCOBOD;  Mr Joe Forson, Managing Director of the Cocoa Marketing Company and Mr Abdul Samed-Adams, Chairman, CPC Workers’ Union.

The representative of the Ministry of Finance on the board is yet to be named, while Prof. Douglas Boateng of the SSNIT was absent.

Commendation

Inaugurating the board, the Minister of Food and Agriculture Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, expressed optimism that the members would bring their experiences to bear and turn the fortunes of the company around.

Dr Akoto commended the MD of the CPC for his visionary leadership as he had within 18 months turned the fortunes of the company around.

He said the composition of the board also gave the hope that the members would be able to further improve the company’s performance, considering their expertise and knowledge in cocoa value addition.

Dr Akoto, therefore, charged the chairman of the board, whom he described as a man with a wealth of knowledge, to lead the team to transform the company.

Response

Responding to the charge, Dr Baah expressed the gratitude of the members of the Board to the President and the Ministry of Agriculture for the trust reposed in them.

He said the board was aware of the agenda of the ministry and the vision of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for the country to move away from exporting raw cocoa beans to adding value to the crop.

Dr Baah said it was sad that in spite of the fact that Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire produced 60 per cent of the world’s cocoa, they continued to receive ‘a paltry sum’ as their market share, and expressed the belief that the addition of value to the cocoa beans would increase the country’s market share of the product.

He asked for increased efforts towards encouraging the local consumption of cocoa products, citing the Brazil example where Brazilians were encouraged to consume Brazil coffee, making that country the largest producer and consumer of coffee.

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