STORAGE FACILITY TO DICONGEST CITY

Picture & Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Takoradi

A multimillion dollar cocoa storage facility under the operations of the Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC) has decongested the haulage traffic in the Twin-City of Sekondi/Takoradi.
It has also reduced the turnaround time of cargo vessels and enhanced the fumigation of cocoa beans for onward shipment to the international market.
The 120,000 ton cocoa storage capacity warehouse also has space for more than 800 of haulage trucks at a time, a canteen, weighing bridge, security, electricity and water supply, garages for auto mechanics, vulcanizing, a hostel and other social amenities that would make life better for the drivers of the haul truck.
The officials say the facility had enable CMC to pack the bags of cocoa in containers from the facility straight to the ship; thereby decongestion the port and limiting the time cargo vessels spent at the port.
According the Regional Coordinator, Mr Samuel Oduro-Asare, who took the media on tour of the facility at Apowa said the apart from the cocoa produced in the Western Region, the facility also takes care of the produce from the Central and Ashanti regions.
He said at the moment about 90 per cent of cocoa export were packaged at the Warehouse under the watchful eyes of customs and other relevant institutions.
The coordinator said the system was arranged in the way that when the trucks arrived from up country, CMC takes over the waybills and issues a parking chit to the trucks to pack after going to through the processes awaiting its turn to offload the good into the warehouse.
“Before the facility was provided, it takes us days to process just a ton, but the facility have made the job so easy, therefore, making the well fermented Ghana cocoa more competitive in the international market,” he said.
Mr Oduro-Asare said one of the main focuses of the company was to ensure that cocoa was handled in a manner that could create more demand for the country’s produce.
Their activities he said had employ the best methods of fumigation by its quality control unit of CMC and other forms of handlings that ensures quality, creates safety as well as the enabling environment for hundreds of people who had found employment at the facility including the drivers.
Asked what the other benefits of the storage facility were, Mr Oduro-Asare said hitherto the building of the facility, cocoa trucks parks everywhere in the metropolis which in many cases result in accidents and drivers slept on the street.
He said It was important to acknowledge that cocoa was one of the lifelines to the country’s economy, therefore, it was important that when the needed environment was created for its preservation before its onward shipment.
“I am personally happy with the fact that after the removal of the trucks from the streets of the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolis, the constant report of collision and crash had seized. That aside it has also created hundreds of jobs to people aside those who are cooking and for the worker and drivers,” he said.