Cadbury Ghana Officials Deny Shut Down Story

Sources close to Cadbury Ghana Limited have denied reports by the Reuters News Agency that the company?s plant in Accra has been shut down. The report quoting Bunmi Oni, described as Chairman of Cadbury Ghana, says the plant shut down is to allow the Cadbury group to take advantage of tax rebates offered in Nigeria.

Nigeria in an attempt to woo more investors is offering companies that export finished products from Nigeria to the sub-region a 20 percent tax rebate. But sources at Cadbury?s offices in Accra, the Association of Ghana Industries and the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre say there are no plans of shutting down the Accra plant.

The Cadbury office in Accra is still operational and Joy News gathers that the production capacity of the Accra plant has been tripled.

Bumni Oni told Reuters that Cadbury products in Ghana will now be supplied from Nigeria where its Ikeja food and drink factory is being expanded to increase production by 75 percent.

The introduction of the tax rebates by Nigeria is considered a threat to Ghana?s investment gateway concept. Nigeria, aside its bad image of violence and insecurity has a large market, more than 100 million people out of the sub-regional population of about 250 million.