Ranking Member on Parliament’s Food and Agriculture Committee, Eric Opoku, has indicated that the Minority Group in Parliament, in conjunction with the NDC Communications Bureau, will embark on a series of engagements with cocoa farmers across the country over Ghana’s 2023/24 cocoa forward sales.
Eric Opoku made this known after calling on the Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, to render an unqualified apology to former President John Mahama for criticizing him over his comments on Ghana’s 2023/24 cocoa forward sales.
Shortly after the announcement of the farm-gate price of cocoa for the 2023/24 cocoa season, former President Mahama criticized government for shortchanging cocoa farmers by pegging the farm-gate price at a paltry GHS1,308 despite a 46-year record-high surge in the world market price.
In an Open Letter to former President Mahama dated 12th September, 2023, Mr Joseph Boahen Aidoo, questioned President Mahama’s understanding of how the producer price of cocoa is 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.”
The statement added 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.”
But according to the MP for Asunafo South, Eric Opoku, the Minority in Parliament has come by indisputable evidence that exposes a blatant lie peddled by the Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD
“It has now emerged that the CEO of COCOBOD told deliberate falsehood in his desperate attempt to justify the rip-off that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has meted out to our hard working cocoa farmers,” he wrote in a statement.
According to Mr Opoku, in 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% of our cocoa for this season was sold forward and used as collateral to secure the $800 million syndicated loan.
“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% of the anticipated production”.
“For the avoidance of doubt, 36.2% of the projected cocoa output for the 2023/24 season translates to a paltry 307,700 tons. This volume of cocoa cannot by any stretch of imagination constitute a “greater percentage” of our projected annual production volume (i.e 850,000 tons) as claimed by the CEO of COCOBOD in his deceitful response to President Mahama,” he added.
Mr Opoku further highlighted that COCOBOD also disclosed to Parliament that the remainder of 63.8% of our 2023/24 cocoa output, which translates to 542,300 tons would be sold on the market at spot prices, which has been ranging between $3,600 and $4,000.
He asserts that if COCOBOD succeeds in selling the remainder at the minimum spot price of $3,600 per ton as a worst case scenario, COCOBOD would have shortchanged our 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% 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,” he continued.
Per the information privy to him, Mr Opoku concluded that former President Mahama was spot on when he accused the government of shortchanging cocoa farmers whose “toil and sacrifices continue to sustain the country’s economy.”
“The incompetent and dishonest CEO of COCOBOD in his bid to deceive our hard-working farmers, threw truth and integrity to the dogs and sought to attack the credibility of President Mahama for exposing this grand heist.”
He iterated that Mr 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 therefore owes President Mahama, hardworking cocoa farmers and the entire nation an unqualified apology,” Mr Opoku added.