Minister rubbishes NDC cocoa politics

The Western Regional Minister, Hon. Joseph Boahen Aidoo, has denied what he believed to be propaganda work by the NDC minority that the bumper harvest of cocoa recorded in the country last year was a result of the conflict in Ivory Coast.

He said checks they had made at the Takoradi port so far did not prove the claim by the NDC minority, as all the cocoa were established to be the quality one that Ghana usually produced.

According to him, the Ivorien way of fermenting and drying their cocoa was different from what our farmers did in Ghana, hence our cocoa was always of high quality whilst the Ivorien one was considered inferior.

Speaking to the western press corp. at his residence in Sekondi last Friday night, Hon. Aidoo said it was an undeniable fact that Ghana had recorded bumper harvest of cocoa this year and attributed this to the motivation of the Ghanaian cocoa farmer and the subsequent mass spraying of cocoa farms by the government.

According to the regional minister who is also the member of parliament for Amenfi East, the congestion that had occurred at the Takoradi port came as result of over hauling of cocoa from the hinterland to the port.

Aidoo told the newsmen that as many as 140,000 metric tonnes of cocoa had been hauled to the Takoradi port alone since December last year as against 50,000 metric tonnes hauled to the port two years ago.

He said in attempt to ease the congestion at the port, directives had been given to temporarily haul cocoa from the rural areas to warehouses at Awaso and Dankwa.

A new vessel, he continued, had also arrived at the port to ship all the remaining cocoa that had been locked up at the port to their destinations abroad.

Minister Aidoo revealed that the decision to re-direct the cocoa to some warehouses in the cocoa producing areas, was to avoid flooding the world market with the commodity, which could compel reduction in the price, which would not be in the best interest of the government and the people of Ghana.

Hon. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, the National Democratic Congress Member of Parliament for Wenchi West had told the NDC gathering in Takoradi that though he was not against Ghana having a bumper harvest of cocoa, the truth of the matter was that the majority of the cocoa had come from Ivory Coast as a result of the conflict going on there.

He argued that if the government had anticipated such a high tonnage of the commodity, warehouse facilities would have been provided and ready market found.