COCOBOD’s Ghc800million Debt Becomes Albatross Killing Local Operators

There is a debt conundrum that is obliterating Ghana’s local cocoa buying industry and the perpetrator of the mess is none other than the sector regulator, the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), WhatsUp News has learnt.

According to information picked up by Whatsup News, COCOBOD owes local buyers in excess of Ghc800 million and the cash trap means that local buyers do not have money to buy cocoa beans.

The situation has created a sweetheart situation for foreign buyers who are using their already superior cash power to scramble beans from farmers and leave local buyers in the dust.

There is concern that the development is worsening the already problematic inequity within the cocoa beans market.

WhatsUp News is learning that COCOBOD’s neglect to pay the local buyers monies owed them is due to poor yield in the past year. But this poor yield is said to have resulted from the failure of cocobod and the Akufo Addo administration to resource the local cocoa market.

Some of these debilitating neglect by the government and the state cocoa regulator include the discontinuation of the free fertilizer policy by the previous government, leading to comparatively poor prices for the beans which, leads to a thriving smuggling route for these Ghanaian beans to neighboring countries.

COCOBOD assures that the local buyers will be paid however, late payment of the monies would suffer from depreciation according to some of the affected persons.

Also, there is concern that late payment of the monies means the local buyers are risking losing business relationships with the already dominant foreign buyers.