Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has justified the approval of requests by companies to import Cocoa beans from Ghana’s neighboring countries.
In a statement, COCOBOD clarified that this has been a practice since 2001, thus the reports making rounds on social media are a misrepresentation of matters.
“Management of Ghana Cocoa Board has noted the widespread circulation of an official letter from the regulator to Afrotropic Cocoa Processing Company Limited.
“This letter, in response to the company’s request to import cocoa beans to process in Ghana has been a subject of misinterpretation on social media leading to misinformation,” COCOBOD said.
In their explanation, COCOBOD indicated that it authorizes the import of Cocoa products from other countries to help chocolate producing companies to cut down on their cost and also help the companies meet their desired recipes for chocolate production and other uses.
“Ghana’s cocoa is a premium cocoa and as part of cost management and operational strategy, companies often blend premium Ghana Cocoa with less premium cocoa beans from other producing countries.
“It is an industry practice that has existed for over 20 years to allow factories to import from other countries including, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Nigeria and Ecuador. The public is therefore urged to disregard the false claim deduced from the leaked letter,” COCOBOD further said.