Friday assured shareholders that concrete steps had been taken to
improve operational efficiency in order to enhance the company's
profitability.
Nana Timothy Aye Kusi, Board Chairman, said everything was being
done to cut down on the losses and return the company on to the path
of making profits.The company in the 2005/06 financial year recorded a
net operating loss of 12.6 billion cedis, representing a slight
improvement over the previous year's loss of 31 billion cedis. No
dividend was declared.
"Both the Board and Management are determined to boost the
company's revenues and at the same time reduce operating cost to
ensure sustained profitability," Nana Kusi told shareholders at the
sixth annual general meeting of the company in Accra.
As a first step, a new approach to cocoa purchasing operations
had been adopted at the beginning of the 2006/07 main season with the
aim to reduce shortages and also to make the districts and regions
more manageable.He explained that the new method was a strategy
adopted to ensure that shortages and other related costs were kept to
the barest minimum.
Efforts are also being made to diversify the revenue base through
freight earnings by the company's articulated trucks and in this
direction the company has acquired a medium term loan to commence its
planned replacement of some of its old and dilapidated tractors,
cargos and articulated trucks.Nana Kusi said the company would
continue to expand the frontiers of its field operations in major
cocoa growing areas to stem the intense competition in the internal
cocoa market in the ensuing years.
The programme has already started with the creation of two new
regional offices and three operational districts in the Western
Region.Nana Kusi said with an all-time record figure of 740,548 tonnes
of cocoa production for the 2005/06 crop year, PBC recorded a slight
increase of cocoa purchased by eight per cent from 225,358 tonnes of
the previous year to 242,473 tonnes in year under review.
The company's market share for the year stood at 33 per cent.On
performance the company recorded a turnover of 2.486 trillion cedis,
an increase over the previous figure of 2.304 trillion cedis in
2004/05 due to increase in volume of cocoa delivered.
Cost of sales, he said, increased by 7.1 per cent from 2.077
trillion cedis to 2.225 trillion cedis, due to increase in volumes
delivered.Total expenses increased by 4.7 per cent from 277.350
billion cedis to 290.350 billion cedis.
Shareholders expressed their unhappiness about the failure of the
company to pay them dividend for two continuous years and called for
efficient management to ensure that shareholders duly received what
was due them.
23 March 07
