The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has assured that although the company recorded significant revenue losses in 2015/2016, it has put measures in place to ensure that the trend is reversed.
COCOBOD lost about GHS216 million in revenue during the period under review, a situation it said has greatly affected the company’s fortunes.
Speaking at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) sitting in Parliament today [Wednesday], the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD, Ray Ankrah, used the opportunity to highlight some reasons that accounted for their poor performance.
“The very first reason for the loss is the big drop in the gross profit percentage. The gross profit percentage is expressed as a percentage of gross profit of our total revenue multiplied by 100.”
“The gross profit percentage measures each sale we make and how much we are going to make out of that to cover our overhead,” he explained further.
He noted that the challenge has seen a steep drop in gross profit percentage between 2015 and 2016.
“In 2014/2015, our gross profit percentage was 17.9 percent. That dropped from 17.9 to 11.6 percent. So immediately, you have lost something there to enable you to cover your overheads.”