Frank Bednar, (3rd left) with some workers of WAMCo at the memorial service
Hermann Eberhard Opferkuch Jnr, a German national and the majority shareholder of West African Mills Company (WAMCo) – a cocoa processing company in Takoradi – has passed on.
The German national, who was committed to seeing the once defunct company achieve its former glory with management and financial support, died on February 24, 2019, at Stimpfach in Germany after a short illness.
The late Opferkuch started coming to Ghana with his late father in the 1980s and became attracted to the people and their culture.
As an industrialist, the late Opferkuch Jnr. contributed immensely towards the economic growth of the country, more especially in the cocoa industry.
His company, Gustav FW Hamester, formerly Walter Schroeder, entered into joint-venture partnership with the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) in August 1992 and rehabilitated the erstwhile Cocoa Processing Company (CPC), now West African Mills (WAM) under the Government’s Divestiture Implementation programme.
He single handedly financed the rehabilitation of WAMCO I and WAMCO 2 – both in Takoradi.
He left behind a wife, Nicole and a daughter, Laura.
At a memorial service held in his memory on the WAMCo premises last Sunday, Frank Bednar, the Managing Director of WAMCo, explained that the majority shareholder of WAMCo had been a purchaser of Ghana’s cocoa beans and products since 1968.
He added “the purchasing of cocoa beans was initially done by his late father, Mr. Opferkuch Snr”.
He indicated that the late Opferkuch was determined to revive WAMCo in collaboration with the current government but unfortunately the majority shareholder did not live to see the rehabilitation and operation of WAMCO2.
According to the Managing Director of WAMCo, the late Opferkuch instituted an annual award for research in innovative cocoa processing technologies at the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana at Tafo.
Present at the memorial service was the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Chief Executive, Kobina Kurentsir Sam, also known as K.K. Sam.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi