Parliament ratifies International Coffee Agreement

Page 31, June 10, 2009
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
PARLIAMENT yesterday ratified the International Coffee Agreement, 2007, which seeks to strengthen the global coffee sector and promote the sustainable expansion of the commodity.
The agreement was laid before the House on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 and referred to the Finance Committee of the House for consideration and report.
The International Coffee Organisation (ICO) was established under the International Coffee Agreement in 1962 by the various governments of coffee-producing and consuming countries which recognised the importance of the commodity to the achievement of socio-economic goals.
Member countries also recognised the need to avoid disequilibrium between production and consumption which could give rise to fluctuations in prices which were harmful to both producers and consumers.
The maiden agreement and its resultant benefits, especially in the area of international co-operation, resulted in the conclusion of five international coffee agreements in 1968, 1976, 1983, 1994 and 2001.
Ghana has been a signatory to all these agreements, with the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOB) as the implementing agency.
The International Coffee Agreement 2007 was adopted by Resolution 431 of the International Coffee Council in September 2007, with the active participation of Ghana, to succeed the 2001 agreement.
The Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Mr James Klutse Avedzi, laid the report of the committee and moved for its adoption.
The Member of Parliament for Kwadaso, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, stated that Ghana was among the few independent African countries who were part of the original negotiators of the agreement in 1962.
He said it was unfortunate that Ghana had not taken advantage of the benefits the agreement provided for its members, to the extent that coffee production in the country had continued to fall since the 1960s.
He observed that many countries in Africa and Asia had successfully used coffee to reduce poverty, increase foreign exchange and also generate jobs among the rural poor.
He compared the flourishing coffee industry in the Cote d’Ivoire which, at its peak, produced 300,00 metric tonnes of the product for export, to Ghana’s maximum export of 15,000 metric tonnes and called for mere efforts to boost the production and export of the commodity in the country.
Meanwhile, the House also approved the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) on timber trade and development co-operation with the European Union.
The objective of the agreement is to ensure that Ghana continues to maintain its access to the EU market for timber and its related products and also provide an avenue for effective development and co-operation with the EU.
The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Collins Dauda, moved the motion for the House to adopt the resolution to ratify the agreement.
The House also adopted another report of the Finance Committee for a waiver of tax liability on equipment/materials to be imported and purchased locally; corporate and expatriate taxes amounting to £12,676,140.50, $4,207,213.60 and $510,001.000 in respect of the Accra-Tema Municipal Area (ATMA) rural water supply expansion (south and north Kpong Project).
In another development, the Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Benjamin Kumbuor, told the House that Bosome-Freho is one of the newly-established districts in the Ashanti Region that had been earmarked to have a new district hospital.
He was responding to a question posed by the MP for the area, Nana Yaw Ofori-Kuragu, who wanted to konw when a new hospital would be built to serve the people of the area.
Dr Kumbuor said in all six district hospitals had been planned for the region and explained that those hospitals would be constructed subject to the availability of funds.