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Ranking Member of the Food and Agricutlrue Committee in Parliament and MP for Asunafo South, Eric Opoku, has accused the Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD of deliberately providing false information regarding Ghana’s 2023/24 cocoa forward sales.
Joseph Boahen Aidoo, the CEO of COCOBOD, he said, deliberately churned out lies in a desperate attempt to justify the rip-off that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has meted out to Ghana’s hardworking cocoa farmers.
This follows discrepancies that have come out between the CEO’s claims and the 2024 budget submitted to Parliament by the Minister for Finance.
Former President Mahama had criticized the government for setting the farm-gate price of cocoa at GH¢1,308, despite a significant surge in the world market price.
President Mahama argued that cocoa farmers deserved a higher share of the international market price.
In response, Aidoo, in a letter dated 12th September 2023, challenged President Mahama’s understanding of cocoa pricing and claimed that the former president used an erroneous world market price of $3,600 to calculate the producer price.
He claimed that consistent with practice, Ghana’s cocoa beans are “mostly sold forward”, and that “the 2023/24 crop was sold between October 2022 and March 2023 at international prices; ranging between $2,200 per ton and $2,400 per ton.
He went on to say that the international price of cocoa then began to increase in April 2023, when a greater percentage of the 2023/24 crop had already been sold.
Mr. Opoku, however, argued that the CEO’s claim of a “greater percentage” of cocoa being sold forward at prices between $2,200 and $2,400 per ton is untrue.
The Ranking member, in a statement issued on Tuesday stressed that documents submitted to Parliament reveal that only 36.2% of the projected cocoa output for the 2023/24 season was sold forward, contradicting the COCOBOD CEO’s assertion.
He said, “Information submitted to Parliament indicates that COCOBOD has already sold part of the remaining 63.8% of our cocoa output for the 2023/24 season at spot prices ranging between $3,500 and $3,770 per ton from October to mid-November 2023.”
“The Minority states for the records that Joseph Boahen Aidoo has lied to cocoa farmers and the entire nation. He had no basis whatsoever to impugn ill motive into what was a statement of fact by the respected former President,” he stated.
According to the Asunafo South MP, former President Mahama’s initial claims about the government shortchanging cocoa farmers are therefore true.
Mr. Boahen Aidoo, he said, owes President Mahama, the hardworking cocoa farmers, and the entire nation an unqualified apology.
