PBC adopts measures to improve efficiency

Story: Boahene Asamoah

THE Produce Buying Company (PBC), a licensed cocoa purchasing company has said it has adopted a new approach to cocoa purchases to ensure efficiency, reduce cost and enhance profitability of the company.
Speaking at the “Facts Behind the Figures” programme of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), the Managing Director of the company, Mr Anthony Osei Boakye said the new approach to cocoa purchases “will reduce shortages to the bearest minimum”.
He said as a result of the new approach, the first quarter results of the company had seen the company’s profit sour from a negative figure of ¢9.3 billion in the 2005/2006 period to ¢13.9 billion for the 2006/2007 year.
Mr Boakye said “comparative first quarter indicators reveal that this is the fist time in three years that PBC has posted a positive results in its first quarter performance”.
The company run into a net loss of ¢31 billion for the 2004/2005 cocoa production year as a result of various industrial problems such as the green pebble cocoa beans, grading and the lack of jute sacks.
The following season, the company again reported net losses of ¢12 billion as a result of the industrial problems the company encountered the previous year.
The Managing Director however, said the company was able to purchase a total of 242,473 tonnes of cocoa out of the total national production which peaked at 740,457 tonnes for the 2006/2007 year.
That, he said, represented an increase on 7.9 per cent of the previous year’s figure of 225,358 tonnes and ensured that the company captured a commanding 33 per cent market share of cocoa buying business in the country.
Giving the highlights of the company for the year under the review, the Deputy Managing Director, Finance and Administration, Mr Joseph Osei Manu said the company has contracted ¢25 billion medium term loan to increase the company’s fleet of vehicles for secondary evacuation.
“Management has also taken steps to revamp the haulage department to make it self-financing and high profit centre to rake in more revenue for the company”, he said.
He said the company would also continue to expand its frontiers of operations in major cocoa growing areas to stem off the intense competition in the internal cocoa market.
The Managing Director of the GSE, Mr S.K. Yamoah, called on the management of PBC to consider raising other financial instruments on the stock market so as to lessen the financial burden on the company.