What started as a fish mongering mother’s request for a helping hand from her daughter has gradually blossomed into a sea foods processing company that currently processes and supplies all kinds of sea foods to hotels and restaurants. Maxwell Adombila Akalaare looks at the ‘how’ of the Visap Sea Foods Processing company and the brain behind it.
FOR many people in Ghana, continuing with a family member’s profession is, perhaps a difficult task and a headache that many do not want to be associated with. And that could simply be because many people think that the professions of family members should at least not also be ‘lineage’: After all, individual family members have differently unique talents if not callings to which they must respectively respond to.
But, for Mrs Vida Sarpong, the founder and now overseer of Visap Sea Foods Company at Tema in Accra, ‘snow-balling” family professions to the future generations are better not cut-off the family hooks.
She told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS that her present profession of processing and supplying all kinds of sea foods to a number of hotels and restaurants within Accra was “bequeathed” to her by her late mother who was a fish-monger
Tracing events that gradually pushed her to her present position, founder and oversee of the operations of the Visap Foods, Mrs Sarpong said as a teenager growing up with her mother, she use to help her in her business.
But as time went on, Mrs Sarpong, decided to start nurturing her own with all the risks associated with it. “Each time I returned from school - during the holidays, I would also go and buy some of the fish, smoke it and go around supplying it within the neighbour hood”.
THE WHITEMEN-CUSTOMERS
For a young lady who was committed to ‘her smoked fish hawking business’, parading the streets with her product, smoked fish was not a big deal to handle. As a result, her customers cut across all manners of people, across different sections and even geographical boundaries.
According to her, she had on one of her ‘hawking sprees’ stumbled upon ”some white men who came to buy fish from her, but because they didn’t have the money to pay for the fish, she had to follow them to their premises for the money.
“And when I got to their place, I realised that they were exporters and they where actually going to export the fish that they had bought from me,” Mrs Sarpong recounted to the paper amidst smiles.
These customers said she lacked the adequate knowledge about the fish quality and the type that was good for the export market.
She therefore took the opportunity, pieced together her expertise from the fish industry, with the little formal education that she had acquired about the fish industry and “educated them on the type and quality of smoked fish that can be exported.
She said the white men acknowledged her education on he right fish for export and subsequently agreed that she supplied them the fish for export.
During those days, Mrs Sarpong said she had also opened up business doors with Marx Mart, a shopping mall in Accra which subsequently gave her the opportunity to supply fish to the mall and also wholesale some to retailers.
THE CURIOSITY THAT PAYS
While supplying fish to her newly discovered white-customers, Mrs Sarpong said she also observed how they use to do the processing of the fish before exporting them.
And since then, Mrs Sarpong’s ambition of adding colour to her mother’s profession of fish mongering opened the doors to supply processed fish to some hotels and restaurants throughout the Greater Accra Region.
She said the company does virtually a weekly supply of the products to hotels and restaurants and added that her Visap Sea Food Processing was also into the wholesaling of the “processing of all kinds of sea foods to retailers for onward selling to individual customers.”
According to Mrs Sarpong, her outfit also intends to bequeath her current profession of processing and supplying sea foods to her children and expressed the hope that her children would do a better job than she is currently doing.
At the moment, Mrs Sarpong said the company was currently getting its stocks from “some Chinese vessels at the ports and sometimes from the canoes.”
But those supplies, Mrs Sarporg said was still below the company’s capacity to supply to its growing clients.
She mentioned that the company was currently striving to import the sea foods as she aims at expanding to meet the growing demand for its products across the country, adding that it was her ambition to “make Visap Foods the number one supplier of sea foods in the country.
A BETTER-HALF’S PUSH
According to Mrs Sarpong, the perishable nature of sea products makes working in the fish sector “very tensed.”
“Sometimes if there is an order and you miss it, it makes you become so tensed such that it can easily break your heart” and stressed that “I always have courage and trust in God”.
Though Mrs Sarpong can only rely on Almighty God for a push to her business, she easily and perhaps, quickly finds cover under her supportive husband’s arms whenever the perishable nature of her products strikes.
She said her husband, Mr Ebenezer Akofi Sarpong, who stepped down from his job to enable him offer full support to her wife’s business has been very supportive to me and the business.
“Even if I sometimes don’t want to do something, my husband would motivate me to do it. He left his job just to come and help me in the business and I think that is very good”, she stated
Mr Sarpong also told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS that men needed to develop patience to be able to cope with the always busy nature of their business wives.
He further called on men who are married to businesswomen to “try and help women who have the foresight to achieve what they wanted to achieve”.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Shareholders must form unified body - Anane-Antwi
THE Centre for Corporate Governance (CCG), a good corporate governance advocacy initiative in the country, has called on shareholders to consider forming an umbrella body, a shareholders association to enable them voice out their legitimate concerns regarding companies that they hold shares in.
According to the Centre, such a move will enable the individual shareholders to help expose their colleagues to the various rights that individual shareholders hold within the companies in which they hold shares.
Speaking at a public lecture on the theme "the rights of shareholders" in Accra, the Founder of the Centre and a Legal Practitioner as well as a Chartered Accountant, Mr Adu Anane Antwi, said shareholders nation-wide had over the past not exercised in fullest the various rights due them as enshrined in the Company's Act.
The lecture was sponsored by the University College of Management Studies and chaired by Mrs Eldora Koranteny, a legal consultant. It was the fourth in a series organised by the Centre meant to sensitise shareholders and the general public on the rights that shareholders have in companies that they have invested in.
Mr Antwi said, "Shareholders coming together to form a body such as a Shareholders Association would enable institutions such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the CCG to sensitise them on some of their rights."
According to him, the lack of an umbrella body of that kind in country was making it difficult "to communicate so well to shareholders in the country about their legitimate rights in these companies," a situation the founder observed had been left unattended to years.
"Buying shares in a company means part ownership of that company and that gives the shareholder certain legitimate rights within the said company. But how many shareholders are aware of these rights?" Mr Antwi asked.
Moves by the Ghana Stock Exchange sometime in 2007 to get shareholders of listed companies on the bourse to form a strong umbrella association as a means of deepening understanding of operations of the market and their rights as well has since not materialised.
Most listed companies throughout the country have over the past few months started holding their annual AGMs. Though almost all shareholders of these companies do endeavour to attend, few of them are ready to ask questions regarding the performance of the respective companies.
But, Mr Antwi said, these shareholders have a range of rights including the right to discuss, determine and approve the terms and conditions of serving Chief Executives, CEOs, MD, Executive Directors and other top managers' terms and conditions "before they start taking them."
"But how many of these top managers' remuneration’s come to shareholders for approval before they are paid to them," Mr Antwi said.
He noted that while other countries were embracing the shareholder rights to the fullest in so doing, helping to strengthen the internal operations of the respective companies, those in Ghana were yet to realise them.
The shareholder, he said, "holds invaluable rights in the company" and further called them throughout the country to take shareholder rights education serious.
According to the Centre, such a move will enable the individual shareholders to help expose their colleagues to the various rights that individual shareholders hold within the companies in which they hold shares.
Speaking at a public lecture on the theme "the rights of shareholders" in Accra, the Founder of the Centre and a Legal Practitioner as well as a Chartered Accountant, Mr Adu Anane Antwi, said shareholders nation-wide had over the past not exercised in fullest the various rights due them as enshrined in the Company's Act.
The lecture was sponsored by the University College of Management Studies and chaired by Mrs Eldora Koranteny, a legal consultant. It was the fourth in a series organised by the Centre meant to sensitise shareholders and the general public on the rights that shareholders have in companies that they have invested in.
Mr Antwi said, "Shareholders coming together to form a body such as a Shareholders Association would enable institutions such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the CCG to sensitise them on some of their rights."
According to him, the lack of an umbrella body of that kind in country was making it difficult "to communicate so well to shareholders in the country about their legitimate rights in these companies," a situation the founder observed had been left unattended to years.
"Buying shares in a company means part ownership of that company and that gives the shareholder certain legitimate rights within the said company. But how many shareholders are aware of these rights?" Mr Antwi asked.
 |
| Mr ADu Anane Antwi |
Most listed companies throughout the country have over the past few months started holding their annual AGMs. Though almost all shareholders of these companies do endeavour to attend, few of them are ready to ask questions regarding the performance of the respective companies.
But, Mr Antwi said, these shareholders have a range of rights including the right to discuss, determine and approve the terms and conditions of serving Chief Executives, CEOs, MD, Executive Directors and other top managers' terms and conditions "before they start taking them."
"But how many of these top managers' remuneration’s come to shareholders for approval before they are paid to them," Mr Antwi said.
He noted that while other countries were embracing the shareholder rights to the fullest in so doing, helping to strengthen the internal operations of the respective companies, those in Ghana were yet to realise them.
The shareholder, he said, "holds invaluable rights in the company" and further called them throughout the country to take shareholder rights education serious.
Fashion out debt policy - CEPA
THE Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA), a policy analysis think tank has called on managers of the country’s economy to, as a matter of urgency, fashion out a “debt policy” that will help deal with the country’s mounting debt problems.
The Centre was of the view that the country’s debt issues had “reached such a time when it must have a real debt policy” that would among other things spell out the various mechanisms to be used in handling the nation’s present rising debt.
Commenting on a range of the macroeconomic issues during the launch of the Centre’s special edition of its “Ghana Economic Review and Outlook 2009-2012” dubbed “The dawn of the oil era”, Executive Director of the centre, Dr Joseph Abbey, said the scattered nature of the country’s debt made their validation a problem to policy makers and the country at large.
“We must, before the end of this year, come up with the actual situation regarding the country’s public debt. To us at CEPA, Ghana must validate its debt so that if any contractor somewhere some day comes up with a debt issue, then we will be able to trace the source of that debt and specifically know what to do with that claim.”
Ghana’s total public debt as at September, 2009 was US$8,551.7 million but surged to US$11,247.7 million in September, 2010, representing a 32.1 per cent leap within the twelve month period.
But the government, through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, last March released nearly GH¢600 million towards settling some of these arrears and that subsequently lowered the country’s public debt margin.
Dr Abbey, who had earlier this year called for the consolidation of the country’s domestic debts, said governments should also refrain from the habits of awarding projects without proper funding from its coffers.
“We should not also allow the creation of debts to the informal sector; if we want to embark on any project, then, let’s ask for the total cost of that project and provide the needed amount before the project actually takes off.”
To him, the practise whereby past and present governments awarded development projects without providing actual payment for those projects was helping to pile the country’s debt problems, a situation the CEPA Executive Director noted had dire consequences for the country’s financial sector and the economy at large.
He observed that such a practice had a greater tenderccy of increasing the already hiking Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) within the banks and thus discouraging the banks from lowering interest rates.
On the NPLs, Dr Abbey said the centre had “picked signals” that some banks under distress of these mounting bad loans sometimes negotiate with the enterprises that owe them “to re-finance some of these loans.
“What we have actually heard is that the bank involve offers the owing institution a new loan which actually includes the interest of the already bad loan that was given earlier,” Dr Abbey explained.
Should that be the case, the Executive Director intimated that the rate of the NPLs “may just be far more than what we currently know and we must also look at that.“
The rate of NPLs among the country’s commercial banks stretched from 14.9 per cent in 2009 to 20 per cent in 2010, partly prompting the banks to keep lending rates tight at 25 per cent across board despite the lowering of the policy rate by the BoG.
Dr Abbey therefore called on the “authorities concerned to find this out and if it indeed exists, they should stamp it out now.”
Forecasting on the economic outlook of the nation in the next two years, Dr Abbey said, “the CEPA projects an overall fiscal deficit of 5.1 per cent of GDP for both 2011 and 2012.”
A key assumption, he said, was that the planned comprehensive strategy to regularise the end-2012 stock of GH¢3.5billion of domestic payment arrears and public sector obligations in respect to SOE debts would be completed and put into operation before the close of 2011.
He thus added that the “so-called informal public debts would be a thing of the past and there would be no need for provisions to clear arrears and no new arrears would be countenanced.”
The Centre was of the view that the country’s debt issues had “reached such a time when it must have a real debt policy” that would among other things spell out the various mechanisms to be used in handling the nation’s present rising debt.
Commenting on a range of the macroeconomic issues during the launch of the Centre’s special edition of its “Ghana Economic Review and Outlook 2009-2012” dubbed “The dawn of the oil era”, Executive Director of the centre, Dr Joseph Abbey, said the scattered nature of the country’s debt made their validation a problem to policy makers and the country at large.
“We must, before the end of this year, come up with the actual situation regarding the country’s public debt. To us at CEPA, Ghana must validate its debt so that if any contractor somewhere some day comes up with a debt issue, then we will be able to trace the source of that debt and specifically know what to do with that claim.”
Ghana’s total public debt as at September, 2009 was US$8,551.7 million but surged to US$11,247.7 million in September, 2010, representing a 32.1 per cent leap within the twelve month period.
But the government, through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, last March released nearly GH¢600 million towards settling some of these arrears and that subsequently lowered the country’s public debt margin.
Dr Abbey, who had earlier this year called for the consolidation of the country’s domestic debts, said governments should also refrain from the habits of awarding projects without proper funding from its coffers.
“We should not also allow the creation of debts to the informal sector; if we want to embark on any project, then, let’s ask for the total cost of that project and provide the needed amount before the project actually takes off.”
To him, the practise whereby past and present governments awarded development projects without providing actual payment for those projects was helping to pile the country’s debt problems, a situation the CEPA Executive Director noted had dire consequences for the country’s financial sector and the economy at large.
He observed that such a practice had a greater tenderccy of increasing the already hiking Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) within the banks and thus discouraging the banks from lowering interest rates.
On the NPLs, Dr Abbey said the centre had “picked signals” that some banks under distress of these mounting bad loans sometimes negotiate with the enterprises that owe them “to re-finance some of these loans.
“What we have actually heard is that the bank involve offers the owing institution a new loan which actually includes the interest of the already bad loan that was given earlier,” Dr Abbey explained.
Should that be the case, the Executive Director intimated that the rate of the NPLs “may just be far more than what we currently know and we must also look at that.“
The rate of NPLs among the country’s commercial banks stretched from 14.9 per cent in 2009 to 20 per cent in 2010, partly prompting the banks to keep lending rates tight at 25 per cent across board despite the lowering of the policy rate by the BoG.
Dr Abbey therefore called on the “authorities concerned to find this out and if it indeed exists, they should stamp it out now.”
Forecasting on the economic outlook of the nation in the next two years, Dr Abbey said, “the CEPA projects an overall fiscal deficit of 5.1 per cent of GDP for both 2011 and 2012.”
A key assumption, he said, was that the planned comprehensive strategy to regularise the end-2012 stock of GH¢3.5billion of domestic payment arrears and public sector obligations in respect to SOE debts would be completed and put into operation before the close of 2011.
He thus added that the “so-called informal public debts would be a thing of the past and there would be no need for provisions to clear arrears and no new arrears would be countenanced.”
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
STC in deep crisis; Cannot add to its fleet of buses.
THE image of the once acclaimed safe, comfortable and reliable passenger transport service provider in the country and the sub-region at large, the Intercity STC Coaches Limited (ISTC) is gradually being replaced with frustrating disappointments to some of its decade-old patrons. Maxwell Adombila Akalaare traces the problem to a mounting debt and other thing within the company.
AN over GH¢23 million debt owned by the Intercity STC Coaches Limited, a state-owned passenger transport service delivering company in the country has gradually dragged the once celebrated STC to its knees.
The debt, GH¢23,236,395.20 is the total amount owned by the company to various financial institutions and some of its service providers in the country. The said debt dates back to nearly a decade ago, virtually after the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) took over the majority shareholding of the company from Vanef Consortium Limited sometime in 2003.
As a result, the company has for about four years now not been able to procure new buses to add to its present 30 roadworthy buses out of a total of 70 fleet of buses that the company owns.
The company's over GH¢23million debt victims ranges from banks to oil marketing companies and to spare part dealers in and around the county.
Although the Business Development, Marketing and Public Relations Manager of the transport company, Ms Gabriella D. Tettey would rather not confirm nor deny the debt owned by the company, she contended that "ISTC is undergoing challenges” adding “but that is not threatening our viability at all."
According to her, the company’s roots in the public sector as a public service institution had initially made its operations “not to be profit inclined. But things are now beginning to change, at least for the better," Ms Tettey added.
SSNIT which holds 80 per cent of the company's shares has already hinted of its intentions to offload all shares. Though, neither SSNIT nor ISTC has yet given any reason that could have necessitated SSNIT's hint of its intentions to offload the 80 per cent shares in the company, ISTC's staggering debt of over US$23 million could be playing a lead role in such corporate decision.
Sources within both institutions mentioned that SSNIT was yet to meet government on the matter. It is however not clear if government, the current minority shareholder would express interest in buying off SSNIT's 80 per cent shares to add to its already 20 per cent shares.
Obsessed by its locked-up capital at ISTC in the name of debt owned it, one of the company's mounting debt victims, the National Investment Bank (NIB) sometime in 2009 secured a court order obligating it (the bank) to freeze the assets of the ISTC as it sought ways of getting the company to pay off the debt. Some sources told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS that the said NIB loan that generated the court order was “used to secure 30 Faw buses for the company.
But the STC’s debt to the bank has since continued to soar and currently stands at GH¢5,850,687 million.
The General Manager of the ISTC, Brigadier General ( Rtd) Edward Lord Attivor last week told Asempa FM, a private radio station based in Accra that lack of planning had caused the company to lose about 80 per cent of its customers.
Insider sources, however told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS that the problem was beyond lack of planning. "There's mismanagement, corruption and some supposed mafia groups have emerged here," the source explained.
According to the source, the ISTC generates an average annual revenue of about GH¢10million "yet the company finds itself in debt virtually after the end of every year. ISTC does not control cost. All that happens is the money comes in but were it passes out, no one knows.” Another source wondered if “STC has ever had a serious managing director who has the experience and expertise of the business.”
According to the source, the company’s MDs have so far been “political appointees.” The political coloration of the MDs, the source said was not "as much an issue as their competence. Their expertise in the sector is what I’m talking about.”
To be efficient and effectively carry out its mandate of offering reliable, safe and comfortable transportation services to its clients, the company's fleet of buses ought to be replaced after every four years. Its current fleet are over four years old but the company's lack of finance has virtually stalled every effort by the company to secure new buses. Frequent breakdown of buses has now engulfed the company’s fleet due to what the Business Development, Marketing and PR Manager of the company said was "due to the pressure on the buses.”
She said the STC currently needs “an immediate injection of about new 30 buses”.
STC had initially earned the reputation of being one, if not the only transport service delivering company in the country that could have been associated with timeliness, comfort and quality service delivery throught-out the country and the sub-region at large.
Passengers of the company’s intercity bus services now frequently throng the company’s head offices along the Circle-Kaneshie road complaining of one mistreatment or the other.
But as more private transport service operating companies continue to pop-up nation-wide, thereby tightening up competition in the sector, the ISTC would have to revitalise its operations in other to survive in the present environment.
The Transport Minister, Mr Collins Dauda after paying a visit to the company's offices in Accra last week hinted that the government was seeking a partner to help bailout the company from its present crises, reports Asempa FM.
He noted that, the partnership that saw SSNIT coming in as the ISTC's majority stakeholder has not injected a pesewa into the business "thereby running the company down."
In the meantime, the minister said his outfit had opened talks with the Metro Mass Transit (MMT), another transport service delivering company to assist the ISTC with buses to augment its broken down vehicles
At the moment, stakeholders of the company are hoping that the anticipated offloading of the SSNIT’s majority shares and the government's hint of a possible divestiture of the company, when successful could help “inject the necessary capital and human resources into the company” that a source said was presently needed “to help turn STC around.”
AN over GH¢23 million debt owned by the Intercity STC Coaches Limited, a state-owned passenger transport service delivering company in the country has gradually dragged the once celebrated STC to its knees.
 |
| Can STC survive its current debt crises? |
The debt, GH¢23,236,395.20 is the total amount owned by the company to various financial institutions and some of its service providers in the country. The said debt dates back to nearly a decade ago, virtually after the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) took over the majority shareholding of the company from Vanef Consortium Limited sometime in 2003.
As a result, the company has for about four years now not been able to procure new buses to add to its present 30 roadworthy buses out of a total of 70 fleet of buses that the company owns.
The company's over GH¢23million debt victims ranges from banks to oil marketing companies and to spare part dealers in and around the county.
Although the Business Development, Marketing and Public Relations Manager of the transport company, Ms Gabriella D. Tettey would rather not confirm nor deny the debt owned by the company, she contended that "ISTC is undergoing challenges” adding “but that is not threatening our viability at all."
 |
| Only 30 out of the company's 70 vehicles are roadworthy |
SSNIT which holds 80 per cent of the company's shares has already hinted of its intentions to offload all shares. Though, neither SSNIT nor ISTC has yet given any reason that could have necessitated SSNIT's hint of its intentions to offload the 80 per cent shares in the company, ISTC's staggering debt of over US$23 million could be playing a lead role in such corporate decision.
Sources within both institutions mentioned that SSNIT was yet to meet government on the matter. It is however not clear if government, the current minority shareholder would express interest in buying off SSNIT's 80 per cent shares to add to its already 20 per cent shares.
Obsessed by its locked-up capital at ISTC in the name of debt owned it, one of the company's mounting debt victims, the National Investment Bank (NIB) sometime in 2009 secured a court order obligating it (the bank) to freeze the assets of the ISTC as it sought ways of getting the company to pay off the debt. Some sources told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS that the said NIB loan that generated the court order was “used to secure 30 Faw buses for the company.
But the STC’s debt to the bank has since continued to soar and currently stands at GH¢5,850,687 million.
The General Manager of the ISTC, Brigadier General ( Rtd) Edward Lord Attivor last week told Asempa FM, a private radio station based in Accra that lack of planning had caused the company to lose about 80 per cent of its customers.
Insider sources, however told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS that the problem was beyond lack of planning. "There's mismanagement, corruption and some supposed mafia groups have emerged here," the source explained.
According to the source, the ISTC generates an average annual revenue of about GH¢10million "yet the company finds itself in debt virtually after the end of every year. ISTC does not control cost. All that happens is the money comes in but were it passes out, no one knows.” Another source wondered if “STC has ever had a serious managing director who has the experience and expertise of the business.”
According to the source, the company’s MDs have so far been “political appointees.” The political coloration of the MDs, the source said was not "as much an issue as their competence. Their expertise in the sector is what I’m talking about.”
To be efficient and effectively carry out its mandate of offering reliable, safe and comfortable transportation services to its clients, the company's fleet of buses ought to be replaced after every four years. Its current fleet are over four years old but the company's lack of finance has virtually stalled every effort by the company to secure new buses. Frequent breakdown of buses has now engulfed the company’s fleet due to what the Business Development, Marketing and PR Manager of the company said was "due to the pressure on the buses.”
She said the STC currently needs “an immediate injection of about new 30 buses”.
STC had initially earned the reputation of being one, if not the only transport service delivering company in the country that could have been associated with timeliness, comfort and quality service delivery throught-out the country and the sub-region at large.
Passengers of the company’s intercity bus services now frequently throng the company’s head offices along the Circle-Kaneshie road complaining of one mistreatment or the other.
But as more private transport service operating companies continue to pop-up nation-wide, thereby tightening up competition in the sector, the ISTC would have to revitalise its operations in other to survive in the present environment.
The Transport Minister, Mr Collins Dauda after paying a visit to the company's offices in Accra last week hinted that the government was seeking a partner to help bailout the company from its present crises, reports Asempa FM.
He noted that, the partnership that saw SSNIT coming in as the ISTC's majority stakeholder has not injected a pesewa into the business "thereby running the company down."
In the meantime, the minister said his outfit had opened talks with the Metro Mass Transit (MMT), another transport service delivering company to assist the ISTC with buses to augment its broken down vehicles
At the moment, stakeholders of the company are hoping that the anticipated offloading of the SSNIT’s majority shares and the government's hint of a possible divestiture of the company, when successful could help “inject the necessary capital and human resources into the company” that a source said was presently needed “to help turn STC around.”
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