Cadbury's partnership with Ghana has been fulfilling-MD

Accra, April 12, GNA - Cadbury Schweppes International is to launch a programme to sink a borehole each day in a cocoa community in Ghana throughout the whole of next year, Mr Andrew Baker, the Managing Director for Africa, Middle East and Turkey, has announced. The Company has within the last three years provided a total of 400 boreholes to bring safe drinking water to cocoa communities in the country.

Mr Baker made these known when he led a delegation to brief President John Agyekum Kufuor on activities lined up to mark 100 year's of Cadbury's operations in Ghana at the Castle, Osu on Thursday.

Next year would be exactly 100 years since the Company started doing business in the country.

Mr Baker stated that they have enjoyed a really rich and fulfilling partnership and said they would therefore use the centenary celebration to re-confirm and re-state their commitment to the nation. The Company, he said, was determined not only to invest in education in the cocoa growing areas through scholarship schemes but support the sustainable development of the cocoa industry. In line with this, it has taken the initiative to re-brand Ghana's cocoa chocolate with a new name 93From Bean to Bar". Activities planned for the centenary celebration would be unveiled in September, this year, and Mr Baker extended an official invitation to President Kufuor to be part of it.

President Kufuor applauded the Company for its good intentions and assured it of Government's support.

He described cocoa as the life-blood of the country, saying, although the nation was formerly called the Gold Coast, it was cocoa that kept the economy buoyant.

President Kufuor said he was happy that Cadbury, which, within the past few years appeared to have cut back on its activities in the country, has bounced back.