WRS stakeholders adopt Action Plan to advance passage of warehouse receipt system bill into law

Members of a Technical Working Group on the Warehouse Receipt System Project have underscored the need to strengthen the legal framework for the Warehouse Receipt System in order to address the financing gap within the agriculture sector.

 The Technical Working Group,  which comprises representatives of public sector institutions notably the Ministries of Finance, Trade & Investment, Food & Security, Securities & Exchange Commission and the IFC, reviewed progress on the implementation of the project and noted the imperative for an enabling legal framework that provides clarity on the roles and responsibilities of the various actors within the ecosystem and ensures certainty to pull together the required investment from the private sector.

Mr Ubong Awah, Senior Credit Infrastructure Specialist at the IFC and the project lead, highlighted the importance of a strong and effective legal framework to provide the bedrock for the reforms being promoted by the warehouse receipt system as a sustainable means of financing agriculture in Ghana.

He pointed out that “private operators and investors do not like uncertainties, and one of the ways to address these uncertainties is to provide a legal framework that is clear and enabling so as to crowd in and sustain private sector investment into the sector.”

The National Programmes Officer at the Swiss State Secretariate for Economic Affairs, (SECO) in Ghana, Madam Harriet Donkoh, in her opening remarks noted that “the Warehouse Financing Bill holds the promise of revolutionising the way we approach agricultural financing in Ghana and SECO is happy to be associated with the various programs and projects such as the WRS within the agricultural sector.”

In his contribution, Mr Amatus Kwame Belarkpeng Deyang, Director of Agricultural Engineering Services Directorate of Ministry of Food and Agriculture, acknowledged the urgent need for the legal framework also added that “we see it as a huge responsibility to be part of this process and we hope to have a good law that would not be difficult to work with, because we are far behind, but with a good law we can still catch up.”

The Director of Accreditation Services of the Ministry of Trade & Industry, Mr Mustapha Kumah, noted that the warehouse receipts system and input financing are at the core of the expanded Planting for Food and Job (PFJ) and indicated the Ministry’s support for the enactment of the legislation.

On his part, Mr Andrew Amerkson, the Deputy Director of the Financial Services Division of the Ministry of Finance, noted that financing the agricultural sector remains a priority for the Ministry of Finance, adding that “currently there is a cabinet request to the ministry to work out modalities for financing the agriculture sector and we hope passage of this bill would go a long way to complement our efforts towards addressing the financing gap.”

At the end of the two-day working session, the Technical Working Group of the Warehouse Receipt project adopted an action plan for expediting the processes for finalising the Warehouse Receipt Bill and facilitating its enactment into law to strengthen the legal framework and improve the effectiveness of the institutional arrangements for warehouse receipt financing in Ghana within the extended project close date of December 2024.

The IFC Ghana Warehouse Receipt System Project is a technical assistance and advisory support project aimed at increasing access to finance and structured markets through professionally managed warehousing to reduce post-harvest storage losses in target agriculture value chains in Ghana.

The project is being implemented in nine regions of the country with financial support from the Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).

The Project is working in partnership with the Ghana Commodity Exchange, participating financial institutions and other stakeholders to de-risk agriculture and facilitate innovative financing solutions for farmers, traders, and small medium enterprises (SMEs).