COCOBOD has tasked the five cocoa processing companies who are indebted to the board to arrange for bank guarantees to get the monies paid.
[contextly_sidebar id=”DR4RWhxreGAaVV4cQFaLuYVwQkZLi6nh”]Cocoa Processing Company (CPC), West African Mills Company (WAMCO), Real Commodities, Afrotropic and Plot enterprise owe COCOBOD a total of 131 million dollars for cocoa beans supplied over the years.
Head of Public Relations at COCOBOD, Noah Amenya tells Citi Business News, the defaulting companies must pay up as a matter of urgency to facilitate their operations.
‘’In spite of the fact that we want to encourage these processing companies to add value to cocoa, we want them to also meet their financial commitments so we are asking them to put in an arrangement supported by their banks to pay the monies that they owe, otherwise we cannot continue to give the beans to them.’’ He said.
So far, COCOBOD has been able to secure 79 million dollars out of the total debt which stood at 210 million dollars at the beginning of 2014.
The situation according to COCOBOD is making it difficult for them to invest in priority projects. According to Mr Amenya, ‘’If you have money stuck somewhere because some processors are not willing or ready to pay, then it affects the extent to which we want to do this intervention.’’
He says, COCOBOD is pursuing the companies to collect the monies to enable liquidity in the operations of the company.
Meanwhile, efforts by Citi Business News to get comments from the five cocoa processing companies over the matter have so far been unsuccessful.
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By: Lorrencia Nkrumah/citifmonline.com/Ghana