"Don't become regular staff" board members urged

Members of board of directors of government agencies are not to act and behave like executive staff issuing instructions to workers without recourse to laid down procedures.

If they did that the trust and confidence reposed in them would be eroded, the Minister of Finance, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo said on Wednesday, when he inaugurated a 10-member board of directors of the Produce Buying Company (PBC) Limited.

"Your role is just to ensure that policy directives are followed and stated objectives achieved over the period," he said. "Your job is to ensure harmony and greater willingness to achieve increase in the cocoa industry."

Referring to the new PBC directors, Mr Osafo-Maafo urged them not to place themselves in positions that would bring them into conflicts or may conflict with their personal interest.

"Every director, who is in any way directly or indirectly materially interested in any contract or proposed contract shall declare the nature and extent of his interest at a meeting of the directors of the company."

The PBC hitherto, the only cocoa buying company in the country, was listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange in May 2000 with shares currently trading at 450 cedis. The company's market share dropped sharply to 40 per cent after the liberalisation of the cocoa buying market by the government.

Cocoa has been the backbone of Ghana's economy for almost a century, accounting for substantial portion of the Gross Domestic Product. Mr Osafo-Maafo said the cocoa sector was a priority area for government; citing last week's increase in the producer price by 41 per cent to 6.2 million cedis per metric ton and the increase in cocoa board scholarship to farmers' wards fund by five billion cedis.

"The current cocoa diseases and pest control programme and the provision of 8.9 billion cedis for the rehabilitation of feeder roads in cocoa growing areas are some of the tangible expressions of government's determination to improve the cocoa sector."

The Finance Minister entreated the board to quickly put in place measures to ensure that there was prompt payment to farmers. There should also be a halt to the cheating of farmers by people, who adjusted scales and similar practices.

He charged them to pool their collective wisdom to resolve the investment and working capital problems of PBC and said the company's market share that has been falling consistently over the years must be addressed.

Nana Timothy Aye Kusi, Chairman of the Board, expressed the gratitude of the board to the government for their appointment, saying; "we deem it as a great challenge and a call to service.

He said they would be mindful of the prevailing circumstances within which PBC finds itself and ensure that it regained 60 per cent of the market share it had. Nana Kusi said the adoption of a multiple purchasing system would ensure that PBC got a competitive edge over the other companies in the cocoa buying market.