Govt Launches Investigation Into Corruption Allegations

Government said yesterday that it has launched an investigation into allegations of corruption in the mass cocoa spraying exercise.

"For the recent report in the Western Region, we have asked the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI) to move in and they have moved in," Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo told newsmen during questions and answers time at the weekly meet the press briefing in Accra.


"If we find out people have cheated they will be punished according to the law." Osafo-Maafo said.


The government introduced the mass cocoa spraying exercise in 2001 as a form of assistance to the farmers. As part of the exercise the government, through the COCOBOD, put aside ?341 billion to purchase chemicals for the exercise.


But the agents undertaking the exercise were allegedly demanding money from the farmers for the services which had already been paid for by the state and should have been provided free of charge.


Others were also engaged in diverting the chemicals to neighbouring, Cote d'Ivoire for sale.


The institution of a probe followed The Chronicle's front-page report about two week ago that a section of the farmers in the Juabeso-Bia District, one of the major producing areas, had been denied the benefit of the exercise since its inception two years ago.

The Chronicle, quoting the local chief farmer, said some of the chemicals meant for the spraying had mysteriously landed in neighbouring Cote d'lvoire.


The Chronicle found out that even though the government provided the chemicals and other logistics required for the success of the exercise, some officials handling the project in the region diverted the chemicals thereby denying farmers access to them.


However, the minister admitted at the conference yesterday that there had been problems with the exercise because of the dubious activities of some people who wanted to take advantage of the farmers' need of the service.


Acknowledging that similar problems existed in the ministries, he said the question should be how to deal with the Ghanaian attitude toward such practices and not leaving it on the Cocoa Industry alone.


On alleged politicization of the exercise, Osafo-Maafo said cocoa beans did not bear the colours of political parties and therefore it was not in the interest of the COCOBOD to use segregation in the mass cocoa spraying exercise based on partisan politics.