Accra, Nov 21, GNA – The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Minority has urged Mr Joseph Boahen Aidoo, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to apologise to former President John Dramani Mahama.
This is over his open letter to the former President, in which he took issues with him on farm-gate price of cocoa.
Mr Eric Opoku, the Ranking Member of Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs Committee of Parliament and NDC Member of Parliament (MP) Asunafo South, in a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency alleged that the Minority in Parliament had come by indisputable evidence that exposed untruths peddled by the CEO of COCOBOD, about Ghana’s 2023/24 cocoa forward sales.
The statement said, shortly after the announcement of the farm-gate price of cocoa for the 2023/24 cocoa season, former President Mahama criticised the Government for shortchanging cocoa farmers by pegging the farm-gate price at a paltry GHS1,308.00 despite a 46-year record-high surge in the world market price.
It said the President Mahama’s comments were grounded on the fact that, the nation’s hard working cocoa farmers deserved far more of the international market price, than they were given by the insensitive the Government, particularly given the unbearable cost of living and hardships they currently reeling under.
It said however, in a so-called Open Letter to former President Mahama dated 12th September 2023, Mr Aidoo took issues with President Mahama.
It alleged that Mr Aidoo questioned former President Mahama’s understanding of how the producer price of cocoa was determined and claimed that the former President erroneously used $3,600 as the world market price to calculate the producer price.
“In that statement, the COCOBOD CEO 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”.”
It alleged that the COCOBOD CEO 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.”
The statement alleged that it had now emerged that the CEO of COCOBOD did not speak the truth in his attempt to justify the rip-off that the Government had meted out to our hard-working cocoa farmers.
It said documents submitted to Parliament by COCOBOD as part of processes for the approval of the syndicated loan for cocoa purchases for the 2023/24 crop season, it was disclosed that only 36.2 per cent of the nation’s cocoa for this season was sold forward and used as collateral to secure the $800 million syndicated loan.
It said specifically, Paragraph 7.2 of the Joint Memorandum to Parliament by the Minister for Food and Agriculture and the Minister of Finance on the approval of the terms of the $800 million syndicated facility partly reads; “The facility does not add to Ghana’s debt stock. The loan is backed by cocoa sales contracts, and the quantity of cocoa collateralized for its repayment is about 36.20 per cent of the anticipated production.”
The statement said for the avoidance of doubt, 36.2 per cent of the projected cocoa output for the 2023/24 season translates to a paltry 307,700 tons.
It said this volume of cocoa could not by any stretch of imagination constitute a “greater percentage” of the nation’s projected annual production volume (i.e. 850,000 tons) as claimed by the CEO of COCOBOD in his response to President Mahama.
The statement alleged that “simply put, the CEO of COCOBOD lied to the good people of Ghana when he claimed that a “greater percentage” of Ghana’s cocoa for the 2023/24 season was sold forward at a price of $2,600”.
It said COCOBOD disclosed to Parliament that the remainder of 63.8 per cent of our 2023/24 cocoa output, which translates to 542,300 tons would be sold on the market at spot prices, which had been ranging between $3,600 and $4,000.
It said this was contained in paragraph 4.2 of the Joint Memorandum.
The statement said if COCOBOD succeeded in selling the remainder at the minimum spot price of $3,600 per ton as a worst-case scenario, COCOBOD would have shortchanged the nation’s hard working cocoa farmers to tune of $542,300,000 (GHC6.5billion).
“As a matter of fact, further information submitted to Parliament indicates that, COCOBOD has already sold part of the remaining 63.8 per cent 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 statement said.
It said clearly, former President Mahama was spot on when he said that the Government was shortchanging cocoa farmers whose toil and sacrifices continued to sustain the country’s economy.
“The Minority Group wishes to state for the records, that Joseph Boahen Aidoo has lied to cocoa farmers and the entire nation”.
The statement said Mr Aidoo had no basis whatsoever to impugn ill motive into what was a statement of fact by the respected former President.
It said Mr Aidoo therefore owed former President Mahama, hardworking cocoa farmers, and the entire nation an unqualified apology.
The statement said in the coming days, the Minority Group in Parliament shall in conjunction with the NDC Communications Bureau, embark on a series of engagements with cocoa farmers across the country on this subject.
Adding to that the nation’s hard-working farmers deserve to know the whole truth about this gross injustice that has been meted out to them by the Government.
GNA