Fast-moving consumer goods manufacturer Wilmar Africa Limited has shut down its oil production plant as a result of the suspension of the intended implementation of the reversal of benchmark value discounts and other reasons.

The producer of Frytol Vegetable Oil and Fortune Rice said in a statement that its oil products have suffered low patronage in the local market due to the influx of less expensive oil products from outside into the country as a result of the benchmark values policy.

“This has made it very difficult for us to sell in the local market because imported oils from Asia are selling far cheaper than our product”, Wilmar said in a statement, adding: “The unit cost of our oil is high as compared to the imported ones as we have to contend with all the overheads in our cost build-up”.

“The government’s announcement of the reversal of the duty discount on benchmark policy was welcoming news; however, the government has suspended action on this announcement,” the statement noted.

Wilmar Africa said since Ivory Coast decided to regulate the price of oil in their market, they have set the price far lower than the prevailing price of local producers in Ghana.

“To make matters worse”, Wilmar Africa said “our export market, which has been complementing our local sales, has also been hit by non-availability of vessels to transport the product to our main export market – Senegal due to the Covid situation”.

“These compounded problems resulted in our worse sales in December 2021 and the low sales continuing into January 2022,” the statement added.

Read the full statement below: