Ghana, Ivory Coast get $20bn yearly for producing 75% of world’s cocoa - Dep Minister

Ghana and Ivory Coast who produce the larger quantity of the world’s cocoa (more than 75%) get approximately $20 billion while companies processing and adding value to the cocoa make more than $200 billion annually, MyNewsGh.com has learnt.

The above came to fore courtesy the Deputy Minister for Local Government Mr. Collins Augustine Ntim. According to him, this fact means that we have not had good leadership for the country.

Mr. Ntim who was speaking in an interview with Kumasi based radio Oyerepa FM monitored by MyNewsGh.com made this known while commenting on policies President of the Republic of Ghana is embarking on in adding value to Ghana’s agricultural produce to earn the country a deserving financial status.

According to him, Government of Ghana led by Akufo Addo is putting in place measures to curb Ghana’s long lasting problem of “value addition”.

The minister in his interview revealed that “Those of us who produce the larger quantity of the world's cocoa, are the countries that get the smaller amount of money”.

“Ghana and Ivory Coast alone produce more than 75% of the world’s cocoa but the two countries get less than 20 billion US dollars annually leaving the chocolate industries alone to make more than 200 billion US dollars”. The minister said.

The minister’s statement may come as a surprise to many Ghanaians as well as Ivorian as leadership of the two cocoa giants “wasted” opportunity given them by the world to increase prices of cocoa this year at a summit.

Both Ghana and Ivory Coast could not take a bold decision in making resolution to benefit their citizenry.

MynewsGH.com gathered that some western countries threatened leadership of the two cocoa giants they were going to pull off their support from the two countries should they increase prices.

However, this is not the first time Ghana has cried about the low benefit she is getting from her cocoa industry.

Most past government have said the same but less effort has been put into adding value to locally produced agricultural produce.

Internally, research has revealed that, more than 50% of perishable foods produced in the country get destroyed without reaching the consumer due to either bad roads or lack of storage facilities.