Collapse of Poultry Industry Linked To Jubilee House “Queen”, La Bianca

Some poultry farmers are livid at recent revelations that La Bianca a company owned by Ms. Eunice Hinneh is importing cheap poultry into Ghana virtually free of charge, and as the biggest frozen food importer in the country, her cheap imports has a direct correlation to the collapsing poultry industry in Ghana.

Poultry farmers across the country have been lamenting the imminent collapse of the local poultry industry due to cheap imports. Their predicament was heightened recently when the Ministry of Agriculture announced that an outbreak of bird flu has rendered poultry products from some parts of Ghana unwholesome.

While the farmers are battling with the massive challenges in their industry, La Bianca, the biggest importer of poultry into Ghana has used her influence as a major bankroller of the Akufo Addo campaign to secure a staggering slash in duties and taxes she pays on her imports, making her products way cheaper than what is on offer by local farmers.

La Bianca’s CEO who is in a conflict of interest situation as a board member of the Ghana Ports and Harbours (GHAPOHA) has been enjoying this disparate tax regime on her imports since 2017 when the Akufo Addo administration was sworn into office.

La Bianca’s latest request for an additional discount on her imports was on April 6, 2021, when Ms. Hinneh wrote to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) asking to be exempted from paying port charges for her imports.

She wanted to be taxed on only half the value of freight and transportation of her goods into the country, even though, it is the combined cost of the freight and cost of the goods that the GRA and the GHAPORA use to calculate their ratio of port levies, duties and taxes.

In her instruction to the GRA, she wants the revenue agency to charge her only US$1,700 for freight and transport for her 40-footer refrigerated containers, even though the real cost for that specification is at an average of US$ 3,500 from most of the countries of origin of her imports.

 The GRA had buckled to Ms. Hinneh’s pressure and had granted her a 10% discount on the value of her frozen imports before duties and port charges are calculated on them. 

This gives her a massive margin that she can use to undercut the poultry and frozen food market. Nobody else is being given such a privilege at the ports, Whatsup News gathered.

In 2017, she was enjoying heavier discounts from the GRA. Her companies were charged between $0.30 and 0.64 cents as customs value per kilogramme on Frozen Chicken while her competitors were being charged between 0.90 cents and $1 per kilogramme.

This caused a major uproar among importers at the time. None of such opposition to the favouritism enjoyed by Ms. Hinneh had forced authorities to rescind their decision allow her to continue to fleece the state of badly needed import revenues, while her trade simultaneously leads to an imminent collapse of the poultry industry in Ghana.