22/07/2008 (Modern Ghana) - Management of Unilever Ghana Limited, has called for the establishment of an oil palm regulatory Board towards the development of the oil palm industry in the country.

Mr Kweku Boateng, the Customer Development Manager of Unilever, who made the call, suggested that such a body should be tasked to regulate the cultivation ,pricing and quality of palm oil.

He was speaking to 12 members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade, Industry and Tourism who paid a working visit to the factory on Monday in Tema.

Mr Boateng said a regulatory Board could monitor activities of palm oil importers adding that there was no need for the importation of crude palm oil into the country as Ghana was capable of producing enough quantity of the product for local industries.

He said the oil palm industry in the country has improved greatly over the past four years as the Benso Oil Palm Plantation and the Twifo Oil Palm Plantations produced about 40,000 metric tonnes of palm oil annually.

Mr Boateng assured members of the committee that the oil palm sector would be able to meet 60,000 metric tonnes of the product needed annual by the local market.

Mr Prince Obeng, Marketing Director of Unilever, said the country was losing about 9 million dollars annually as a result of the importation of cooking oil.

He said a research carried out by Unilever, revealed that 368 containers of refined cooking oil were imported into the country in March this year, and between 21,500 and 32,400 dollars were lost through non payment of duties, false declaration and smuggling.

He said some importers reduced the price of their product because they imported saturated oil into the country labelled as crude oil palm, paying only 5 per cent import duty instead of the 20 per cent.

Mr Obeng said oil palm plantations in the country were collapsing gradually due to the activities of the importers as consumers always purchased the cheaper products leading to the factories not buying the plantations’ produce.

Mr Charles Cofie, Chief Executive Officer of Unilever, said over 45,000 people nationwide depended on the products of Unilever.

He said that the company has awarded 350 scholarships to senior high school students, 87 under graduates and 18 post graduates.
Mr Joseph B. Dankwa, chairman of the Committee and Member of Parliament (MP) for Abuakwa North constituency, said the visit was to enable the group to understand operations of the company to enable it to initiate measures to promote the oil palm industry.

He promised that the Committee would convey the request of Unilever to parliament and urged other companies to invite parliamentary committees to their facilities to enable MPs to formulate laws to improve the various sectors of the economy.