GIPC team and WAMCO officials in a group photograph
A team from the Ghana Investment Promotion Council (GIPC) has visited the West African Mills Company Limited (WAMCO), a cocoa processing company based in Takoradi.
WAMCO is a joint venture private company between the Government of Ghana, which owns 40 per cent shares, and Walter Schroeder of Germany, which owns 60 per cent shares.
The team, led by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GIPC, Simon Madjie, was at the premises of WAMCO to among others, gain firsthand insight into the company’s operations.
The visit was part of GIPC’s ongoing regional outreach efforts aimed at strengthening collaboration with key stakeholders and driving investment across the country.
Managing Director of the cocoa processing company, Frank Bednar, explained the progress the company has made so far.
The GIPC CEO assured that the requisite structures would be put in place for the company to continue to thrive.
WAMCO, with state-of-the-art machinery and equipment to turn cocoa beans into various semi-finished products for export, was shut down between 2014 and 2017.
This was after the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) allegedly stopped supplying cocoa beans to the company which had an installed processing capacity of 250 tonnes of cocoa per day.
The situation forced a total of about 254 employees of WAMCO to be sent home by management of the company.
During the previous regime led by Nana Akufo-Addo, a team was formed to conduct technical, structural and financial audit of the company.
A committee was thereafter constituted to oversee the reactivation of the company.
An initial 150 tonnes of cocoa was supplied to WAMCO in September 2017.
From October 2018 to May 2019, a total of 5,540 tonnes of cocoa was supplied and the company was able to employ a total of about 170 employees.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi