GREL pays GH¢1.35 million bonus to loyal rubber farmers

● Mr Loenel Barrre, MD GREL

The Ghana Rubber Estates Limited (GREL) has paid GH¢1.35 million to 790 rubber outgrower farmers who have continuously sold rubber to the company.

The payment known as “Fidelity Bonus’ was to reward the rubber outgrower farmers who demonstrated total loyal­ty to the company by deliver­ing rubber cup lumps to the weigh bridges and processing factories for eight consecutive months during the 2022-2023 agriculture season.

In a communique to the outgrower farmers, the GREL said it really appreciated the long-standing relationship with its outgrower farmers and the payment was to show appre­ciation and to boost their morale and also to encourage other outgrower farmers to be loyal to the company.

GREL started as a small private plantation established by R. T. Briscoe in 1957 at Dixcove with a plantation size of 923 hectares.

The plantation was nation­alised into Agricultural Devel­opment Corporation (ADC) in 1960 and later, State Farms Corporation in 1962. At that time, the rubber plantation had expanded to Abura and Subri.

The Ghana Government, in 1967, established a joint ven­ture company with Firestone Tyre Company of USA to take over the rubber plantation. This joint venture company was Ghana Rubber Estates Limited (GREL).

GREL became wholly state-owned in 1980 when Firestone sold its shares in GREL to the Ghana Government.

However, the Ghana Government entered into a financing agreement with the then Caisse Française de De­velopment (CFD) now Agence Française de Development to rehabilitate and manage the company’s rubber plantation and to build a new rubber pro­cessing plant at Apimenim.

After the rehabilitation in 1996, the French management company, Societe Internatio­nale d Plantation d’ Hevea (SIPH) became the major shareholder of the company.

 By Peter Gbambila