Dr Ransford Abbey, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), says the Board’s poor financial situation is making it difficult to improve cocoa road infrastructure and implement other interventions.
He said mounting debts was impeding the Board’s efforts to tackle emerging challenges, establish cocoa clinics and to provide essential healthcare delivery services. Dr Abbey raised the concerns when he interacted with some cocoa farmers and cooperative unions at Tenponso, a cocoa growing community near Duayaw-Nkwanta in the Tano North Municipality of the Ahafo Region.
The CEO was in the area as part of his familiarisation tour of the Bono and Ahafo Regions to gain deeper understanding, identify emerging challenges and assess the needs of the cocoa farmers in the regions. Dr Abbey said he was unhappy about the current national cocoa production output, and called on the cocoa farmers to work hard for improved productivity, as the government also worked hard to tackle challenges in the sector.
He said joint efforts were required between the COCOBOD and farmers towards implementation of strategies and interventions to boost national cocoa production. Dr Abbey told the farmers that the nation’s economy hinged heavily on cocoa and urged them to support the COCOBOD to improve the sector for economic growth, stability and sustainable development. He implored the cocoa farmers to be patient with the government, assuring that the government was working hard to address their challenges.
Miss Martha Addai, the President of the Brong-Ahafo Women Co-operative Cocoa Farmers and Marketing Central Union (BAWCOF) Limited, pledged the union’s commitment to support the board towards enhancing cocoa production in the country. She said the union had more than 7,000 members in the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions, and collectively harvested about 4,355 metric tons of cocoa in the previous season, saying with support the union could enhance production.
Some of the cocoa farmers also told the Ghana News Agency that they had hopes in the cocoa sector and called on the government to supply them essential agricultural inputs, agrochemicals, and fair pricing for cocoa beans.
Source: GNA
