The Ghana Grains Council (GGC) is a private sector organization comprising of grain value chain actors, including farmers, warehouse operators, agro-food processors, financial institutions, commodity marketers, etc. Since its inception in 2010, the GGC has developed an enabling environment including warehouse certification, rules and regulations, engaging collateral management services, training of users, etc. to enable it set up and manage a Warehouse Receipt System.

In December 2012, the Ghana Grains Council launched the first Regulated Warehouse Receipt in Ghana; the first of this kind in West Africa sub-region with financial and technical support from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Ghana Agricultural Development Value Chain Enhancement Program (ADVANCE).

Since its commencement, the GGC Warehouse Receipt has focused on maize, a key food security crop in Ghana as part of a package of innovation that has modernized and enhanced the efficient marketing of this crop. The Warehouse Receipt System has played a very important role in the development of the maize value chain by enabling GGC member producers, traders and processors to hold stock back till the lean season, allowing them to access markets on more equitable terms, and enhancing the efficiency of the entire maize value chain.

So far over 29,000MT of maize have been stored under the GGC Warehouse Receipt Program. The use of a Warehouse Receipt allows GGC members to deposit their grains in a GGC certified warehouse and to meet short term need for cash by borrowing from a GGC member bank or other member lending institutions.

It has enabled the many GGC member small holder farmers in particular to avoid selling their grains immediately after harvest when the supply of the commodity is usually highest and sometimes result in low prices.  Warehouse receipts have also helped address the problems of price volatility and lack of quality standards usually attributed to market liberalization in the Ghana grain industry.

In order for GGC Warehouse Receipt System to continue to be more useful and serve the needs of the GGC members, periodically reviewing the system then becomes a pre-requisite to serve as basis for improvement. That is,  review  rules and regulations of the Warehouse Receipts; extent of the receipts to retain its key purpose( as secured collateral);  Warehouse Receipts serving as a functionally equivalent to stored commodities; clear definitions of the rights, liabilities, and duties of each party to a Warehouse Receipt (for example a member farmer, a member bank, or a member warehouse operator) must continue to be clearly defined; ability to transfer the Warehouse Receipts freely by delivery and endorsement, etc.

Within one (1) year of the implementation of the Warehouse Receipt Program, GGC has faced a number of challenges among which are relatively low take-up particularly by small holders, lack of suitable warehouses for certification, inadequate oversight by regulator, low participation by banks, high transaction cost, smallholders limited knowledge on how receipts works, high cost of establishing and running warehouses, difficulty in finding suitable markets for receipts, etc.

Job Summary

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST (EOI)
CONSULTANCY SERVICES FOR REVIEW OF EXISTING ARCHITECTURAL AND ENGINEERING DESIGNS, PRODUCTION OF TENDER AND CONTRACT DOCUMENTATION AND CONSTRUCTION SUPERVISION OF 500 METRIC TONNES CAPACITY WAREHOUSE

In fulfilment of the objectives in improving and linking smallholder farmers to diverse markets through structured trading, the Ghana Grains Council (GGC) with funding from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is supporting the construction of 500MT grains storage, cleaning and bagging service center in the Upper West Region of Ghana.

Accordingly, the GGC wishes to engage a Consulting Engineer to carry out a review of all existing documentation on the project and to produce the appropriate tender and contract documents, including construction supervision of the works.

The GGC invites eligible Consultants who are interested in providing these services to send in their responses to the address provided below. All interested Consultants must provide information including company profile, brochures, description of similar assignments, experience under similar conditions, and availability of appropriate skills, among others indicating their qualification to perform these services.

A Request for Proposal will be sent to a shortlist of suitably qualified Consultants who will be required to submit their technical and financial proposals for consideration by the evaluation panel.

Location: Accra

How To Apply For The Job

Interested Consultants may obtain further information from the address below during office working hours of 8:00 am to 4:30 pm throughout the duration of this advert.

Expression of Interest (EOI) must be delivered to the same address before 10:00 am, on the last day of the deadline this advert. Be encouraged to share the information with fellow qualified Consultants.

Please note that, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

All bids must be addressed to;

Ag. Executive Secretary
Ghana Grains Council
PMB 212, Madina, Accra;

or by email to:

info@ghanagrainscouncil.org

For further enquiries, please call +233 (0)307 021 091 or +233 (0)501 298 345

Closing Date: 17 December, 2013