The Minority in Parliament have accused the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Mr. Joseph Boahen Aidoo, of being economical with the truth with regards to information about the cocoa industry.
According to the Minority, led by Dr. Ato Forson, they disagree with Aidoo’s claim that a “greater percentage” of Ghana’s cocoa for the 2023/24 season was sold forward at a price of $2,600. This, according to them, was based on evidence they had gathered. They, therefore, want the COCOBOD CEO to render an unqualified apology to former President John Dramani Mahama.
Background
President Nana Akufo-Addo recently pegged the farm-gate price of cocoa for the 2023/2024 cocoa season at GH¢1,308.
This announcement was greeted with rapturous applause by many cocoa farmers as the price, as announced by the president, reached an all-time high in the history of the country.
However, former President Mahama reacted to the situation and posited that the price, as announced by Nana Akufo-Addo, meant nothing but a shortchange of the suffering farmers.
According to Mr. Mahama, there was a 46-year record-high surge in the world market price of cocoa and based on this, he explained that hard working Ghanaian cocoa farmers deserved better than the announced price.
COCOBOD’s reaction
Reacting to the claims by the former president, the CEO of COCOBOD in an open letter to the former president, in September, questioned Mr. Mahama’s understanding of how the producer price of cocoa was determined.
Mr. Aidoo argued that consistent with practice, Ghana’s cocoa beans were “mostly sold forward” and that the 2023/24 crop was sold between October 2022 and March 2023 at international prices. The price, he stated, ranged between $2,200 per ton and $2,400 per ton adding that Mr Mahama erroneously used $3,600 as the world market price to calculate the producer price.
Mr. Aidoo further disclosed that “the international price of cocoa then began to increase in April 2023, when a greater percentage of the 2023/24 crop had already been sold.”
Rebuttal by minority
The minority, however, insisted that the CEO of COCOBOD was not truthful in his “desperate attempt to justify the rip-off that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has meted out to our hard working cocoa farmers.”
The Minority cited documents submitted to Parliament by COCOBOD as part of processes for the approval of the syndicated loan for cocoa purchases for the 2023/24 crop season to back its claims.
The Minority insisted that according to the CEO’s own documents, only 36.2% of Ghana’s cocoa for this season was sold forward and used as collateral to secure the $800 million syndicated loan.
It specifically referenced Paragraph 7.2 of the Joint Memorandum to Parliament by the Minister for Food and Agriculture and the Minister of Finance on the approval of the terms of the $800 million.
A statement issued by the Member of Parliament for Asunafo South and Ranking Member for Food and Agriculture, Eric Opoku, quoted the MoU as saying; “The facility does not add to Ghana’s debt stock.
“The loan is backed by cocoa sales contracts, and the quantity of cocoa collateralised for its repayment is about 36.20% of the anticipated production.” For the avoidance of doubt, he said, the 36.2% of the projected cocoa output for the 2023/24 season translated to a paltry 307,700 tonnes.
“This volume of cocoa cannot by any stretch of imagination constitute a ‘greater percentage’ of our projected annual production volume (i.e. 850,000 tonnes) as claimed by the CEO of COCOBOD in his deceitful response to President Mahama”.
COCOBOD, he contended, further disclosed to Parliament that the remainder of 63.8% of our 2023/24 cocoa output, which translated to 542,300 tons, ranging between $3,600 and $4,000, would be sold on the market at spot prices.
If COCOBOD succeeds in selling the remainder at the minimum spot price of $3,600 per ton as a worst case scenario, COCOBOD, he said, would have shortchanged our hard working cocoa farmers to tune of $542,300,000 (GH¢6.5 billion).
“As a matter of fact, further information submitted to Parliament indicates that, COCOBOD has already sold part of the remaining 63.8% of our cocoa output for the 2023/24 season at spot prices ranging between $3,500 and $3,770 per ton from October to mid-November 2023,” he added.
Due to these, he said, former President Mahama was spot on when he said that the government of Akufo-Addo/Bawumia was insensitive to have short changed cocoa farmers whose toil and sacrifices continued to sustain the country’s economy.
