COCOBOD is dead, bury it – President of Cocoa Farmers Association

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has collapsed and must be done away with, President of the Concerned Cocoa Farmers Association, Nana Boateng Bonsu, has indicated.

Last week, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta said his office and the Bank of Ghana were liaising to to set up a monitoring desk at COCOBOD to ensure discipline in the state-owned company's expenditure, following concerns raised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that its huge annual losses, posed a major threat to the sector and government’s fiscal efforts.

“Both the Governor of the Central Bank and the Minister of Finance – myself, will now be on the Board and we are also setting up a desk at the Finance Ministry that will interact with the finance division of COCOBOD to make sure the issues of fertilizers, cocoa road are all brought into an ambit of discipline. Those begin to tell you how we are getting into the issue of expenditure,” Mr Ofori-Atta said.

Mr Bonsu, in response to that move, however, said: "Cocobod is a collapsed institution", insisting: "We know it, we foresaw it and said it several times but they never listened".

"So, for this situation, we don’t need Ken Ofori-Atta and his people. What are they coming to do?” he wondered.

“If they had something better to offer, by now, Ghana’s economy would have shot up", Mr Bonsu noted.

He said: "They have nothing to offer. Cocoa farmers are capable of doing their own things" and demanded that "they should forget about Ken Ofori-Atta and his people".

“If they know COCOBOD has collapsed, we should know so that cocoa farmers can sell their products directly to the buyer to make our money rather than relying on the government, because the government has nothing better to offer the farmers,” he said.

“Right now, a lot of farmers are cutting down their cocoa trees and shifting to different crops all because they’ve realised that they have been enslaved for so many years", Mr Bonsu revealed.

In his view, “COCOBOD has put wax in their ears and are not listening to the farmers".

He complained that COCOBOD takes decisions willy-nilly without the input of the farmers.

"There’s nothing happening on the ground. There is no dialogue between farmers and COCOBOD. Anything that comes to them and they think it is beneficial to them or us, they just implement. There is nothing like an engagement or ‘let’s sit down with the farmers since they are those on the ground and see what they want’", he told Joy News on Monday, 23 October 2023.

COCOBOD was set by ordinance in 1947, to encourage and facilitate the production, processing and marketing of good quality cocoa, coffee and sheanut in all forms in the most efficient and cost effective manner.

It was given ¢27 million (being Ghana's share of the net profit of the West African Produce Control Board) as its initial working capital.

The Board traces its beginning further back to the cocoa hold-up of 1937.

The Board first rented and occupied the old premises of the Export Produce Control Board on the 28th February Road, Accra, and when Swan Mill, which was built by the United Africa Company Limited was completed, it rented part of it at an annual cost of approximately ¢ 4,500.00 after which it acquired its own building.

In 1957, Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, laid the foundation stone to mark the construction of Cocoa House at 41 Kwame Nkrumah Avenue, Accra to provide offices for the Board.

The building of Cocoa House was not only meant to avoid payment of rent but also to represent a concrete expression of the Board's faith in the future of the cocoa industry and a living monument to the hard work of the Ghanaian farmer.

The six-storey Cocoa House, which was built at a cost of nearly ¢2 million, was commissioned in November 1960 by the late President. Cocoa House also provided offices for such foreign and local organisations such as Ethiopian Airlines and ARB Apex Bank.