OOPC sets to return to Stock Exchange, steps up on cashless policy

The Chief Executive Officer, Okitipupa Oil Palm Company (OOPC) Plc., Taiwo Adewole, has announced plans to return the recently revived company to the Nigerian Stock Exchange before year end.

Adewole, who disclosed this in an interview with The Guardian in Okitipupa, also gave insight into some of the corporate restructuring currently going on in OOPC, ahead of its return to the Stock Exchange.

The move was also confirmed by the Chairperson, Board of Director, Mrs. Mobolaji Osomo, in a telephone chat, said OOPC is now fully in the hand and under the control of the shareholders.

As part of these measures, Adewole, said the new management established a proper accounting and procurement procedure, as a strategy to combat cases of fraud, improper book-keeping, and fund misapplications, which characterised the affairs of the sacked management, and contributed in crippling the firm.

He said: “A well detailed procurement policy is being put in place; we hold everyone accountable, money is not just spent here frivolously, it goes through a process and the approval process shows that there is proper scrutiny of what we do and beyond a certain limit it has to be approved by the board.”

To further complement and strengthen the new management’s zero tolerance against fraud policy, Adewole said the oil palm firm has introduced a cashless regime where all transactions shall be done through e-payment, including salary payment, deposits for products by customers, and supplies to the company.

He added that OOPC had, at a Customers’ Forum, where all briefed stakeholders on what informed the cashless policy, which is also to protect their interest, noting that the forum had now become a permanent one where the two regularly interface.

“So, within the first week of our coming to office, we put in place a cashless policy and today the company and the customers are better off.”

He decried that the company had lost hundreds of millions of Naira in the past, due to the physical cash policy it operated, describing it as “fraudulent cash and carry policy.”

He appealed to a section of the workers (harvesters), who are against the cashless policy to have a rethink, and end their opposition, so as not to sabotage the company’s recovery programme.

The OOPC boss further assured that the company is not only returning to the Stock Exchange, but also returning to serving the stakeholders, especially the communities, who are host to the 10 plantations that feed the two factories at Ipoke, and Okitipupa.

He said this is in line with the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), where it plans to award scholarships to indigenes, and in addition, allow them access to OOPC’s schools and health centres when fully rehabilitated.

“Everyone of them will feel the impact of the company. We are going to come back to all that we used to do to support the community in that regard and do much more. We are also looking at scholarship, training programmes for people here,” he said.