According to JoyNews’ investigations, PBC, the nation’s largest indigenous cocoa buyer, is in danger of failing due to a sharp fall in market share from 30.88% to 8% during the past five years.
The company’s management made hints about workforce reductions in January of last year because it was unable to fulfill its financial and operational commitments to its employees.
Management sent out a memo in August 2022 stating that it was unable to pay employees’ salaries. Large debts, decreased earnings, tons of cocoa beans trapped in the farms, and produce clerks engaging in double trading to live now characterize the story.
Now, the story is one of unpaid employee wages, tons of cocoa beans trapped on farms, and produce clerks forced to engage in double trading in order to survive.
When it was established as the Produce Buying Division Limited on November 13th, 1981 as a 100 percent state-owned firm and a subsidiary of the Cocobod, the organization used to have the largest market share.
However, the company that offered many cocoa farmers some optimism seems to have lost its shine recently, and business is in freefall.
Due to a scarcity of fuel for the trucks, district managers are unable to transport tons of cocoa from societies to depots.
Because there are no finances to compensate farmers who sell their beans to the producer buying firm, its purchasing clerks are now using PBC facilities to buy and trade chocolate for rival companies.
Whistleblowers and senior employees of the Produce Buying Company petitioned the president in 2021 regarding the potential failure of the state-owned enterprise. He expressed concern over the market share decline of PBC.
He made a prediction about the company’s market share in his plea to the president. He claimed that the state-owned corporation would perish if PBC’s market share fell below 10%.
He put the blame for PBC’s situation on management and advocated a change in business tactics to safeguard the livelihood of the approximately 900 employees and 15,000 commission-based clerks.
After raising the red flag, he was placed on administrative leave, demoted, and ultimately suspended for alerting the president to the situation in order to save the business and allow it to purchase massive amounts of cocoa.
JoyNews engaged with PBC employees and purchasing clerks during visits to three different regions. Concerned about potential victimization, a depot manager stated his concern about the decline in PBC market shares. He cited their inability to buy cocoa for the primary crop season in 2021 as an example of how this has affected their activities in the regions.
He claimed that because money for purchasing cocoa was only released after week five of the previous season, competitors had already made sizable purchases.
He bemoaned the fact that district managers need personal loans in order to transport cocoa from the societies to the depots.
When PBC would not provide funds for the purchase of cocoa, a purchasing clerk who talked to JoyNews said they were forced to utilize their facilities and weighing scales to purchase cocoa for other companies in order to maintain their customer base.
The fact that the state-owned enterprise had a 30.8% market share shows that it was able to buy 240,297 tonnes of cocoa during the main crop season of 2015–2016. However, as of the end of the primary crop season in 2021–2022, PBC was only able to purchase 52,364, which caused the company’s market share to fall to 8%.
PBC was one of the government’s joint venture firms that had shown a considerable fall in its revenue from GH 1.9 billion cedis in 2016 to GH 1.0 billion cedis in 2020, according to the state ownership audited report of the finance ministry for the year 2020.
Over a four-year period, it indicates a 50% revenue decline for PBC. PBC is one of the government-owned businesses that has experienced losses since 2016. PBC had long-term loans totaling 504 million cedis as of 2020. For the more than 900 PBC employees who have been dealing with erratic salary payments, the future is now unknown.
In a circular sent to the entire staff on August 20, 2022, it was stated that the company’s present financial difficulties would cause a delay in salary payments. This employee, who requested anonymity when we spoke with him in November 2022, informed JoyNews that their salaries were delayed by three months the previous year. For many people, supporting their family as well as themselves was tough.
He claimed that, contrary to former practice, it is now challenging for employees to obtain welfare loans from the corporation.
PBC’s financial situation is so grave that it has suspended the intake of national service personnel for the fiscal year 2022/2023. According to a JoyNews-quoted circular, the human resource manager, William Ayisi, cited the company’s present financial challenges as the cause.
PBC informed the Ministry of Labour in January 2022 of its intention to restructure the company, including decreasing its workforce. It highlighted the current financial and operational crisis as making it difficult to pay employees and meet its shareholder obligations. It stated that those affected by the downsizing are those without an establishment. According to our sources, when COCOBOD secured the cocoa syndicated loan last year, it loaned PBC an estimated 350 million cedis.
Management spent 50 million cedis on employee salaries and other administrative costs. PBC announced a national goal of purchasing 170,000 tonnes of cocoa for the main crop season of 2022/2023. However, given the minimal cash in PBC’s account, this aim remains a pipedream, leaving personnel in another state of uncertainty about what fate awaits them if PBC survives and their remuneration is paid.
The anxieties of the PBC personnel rise with each new day. The staff is aware of the activities of one of PBC’s subsidiaries, PBC Shea butter at Buipe in the Savannah region. PBC Shea butter has ceased operations, its premises have been abandoned, and operating cars have been parked. Their fuel station and tanks are rusting. The once thriving entity has faded into obscurity. The machinery that used to manufacture shea butter have become obsolete, with spiders covering its parts with cobwebs.
The boilers that formerly provided a sense of vitality to the premises are now deafeningly silent. Bags of shea butter are rotting in the company’s warehouses. Its storage facilities are now a haven for birds. Atta Mudasiru, a PBC shea butter employee, blames the company’s situation on management’s lack of vision.
Since then, the company’s employees have endured unimaginable agony. They haven’t been paid in eight months. Musah Mohammed claims he is severely in debt, making it difficult for him to leave the house throughout the day.
Because to PBC’s debt, the management is unable to obtain bank financing. Borenyi Yusif can’t recall the last time he looked at the company’s top executives.
As many workers worry, this is the fate of PBC Limited. To save the only state-owned cocoa purchase enterprise for the sake of the numerous mouths that rely on its survival, fast intervention is required.
