Story: Mary Ankrah
Pioneer Foods Cannery (PFC) Limited, Ghana’s largest processor and exporter of tuna fisheries products has said there is no official contract signed between PFC and Ghana Protein Limited (GPL) for the supplier of fish waste to GPL.
Rather, it said, it was only a letter of intent that was used to facilitate PFC’s dealing with GPL from the very beginning which, was never intended to be binding.
“We have used legitimate and reasonable notices to deal with Ghana Protein in all business dealings. In the many instances, PFC has gone further yard and at no point in time have we made a promise of perpetual continuous and uninterrupted supply of waste from PFC to Ghana Protein”, the acting Head of Human Resource of PFC, Mr Nana Yaw Amaka-Otchere, said at a press conference on Thursday in Accra.
This was in response to the publication in the media that the PFC had served notice to terminate suppliers of fish waste to the GPL.
Addressing the press men, Mr Amaka-Otchere indicated that PFC had under many repeated notifications, informed GPL that once there was no obligation on volume agreement in the absence of an official contract, the company would continue to exercise its independence of any limitations from their operations.
Thus, PFC currently services another indigenous company with a substantial proportion of its factory offal under “fair trading competition” practices, he observed.
Again, he emphasised that for years now, PFC had been informing its partners and stakeholders including GPL, the Ghana Free Zone Board, Fisheries Commission and the Ministries of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) and Trade and Industries (MOTI), of its intention of either buy an already existing fish meal production facility or build its own milling facility as part of its integrated expansion plans.
He noted that the decision by PFC to build its own milling plant was part of its regulatory compliance aimed at not only having the full control of its offal movements around the country, but also fulfilling its corporate responsibility on the environmental commitments made to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Tema Metropolitan assembly (TMA).
The acting Head of Human Resource of PFC emphasised that the declaration by GPL that PFC was their sole supplier was a mere ‘comfort statement’ and ‘not exhaustive’, adding that PFC had secured all the necessary permits to operate its milling facility.
“We have in consonance with our fair-trading principles served reasonable notice of half a year to GPL that we will cease suppliers because of the new development of mainstreaming our own fish meal plant. The notice served is more than fair as it for a six months period”, he opined.
He said apart from the formal notice of cessation of supply, the company had verbally notified GPL on several occasions of their intention to establish PFC fish meal plant.
In constructing the fish meal plant, Mr Amaka-Otchere mentioned that the company had utilised technology that is freely and easily available on the global market, for which there is no special exclusive access to one part.
He said the PFC had also renovated and refurbished its processing floor at a cost of US$3 million to offer better and more employee friendly working conditions at the factory.
Mr Amaka-Otchere, again, disclosed that the company had completed the installation of the new fish meal plant, representing a further US$3.2 million foreign direct investment (FDI) from its principals to produce for local markets; with and additional US$3.5 million for a state of the art water treatment plant which was currently under construction on the premises of PFC to enhance full compliance of EPA requirements.
He justified that the keen competition from other countries in Asia and South America, rising cost of raw materials operational input and the consistent increase in the price of its final product has prompted such prudent measures of fish meal and oil projects for economic maximisation of the raw materials.
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