A member of Parliamentary Select Committee on Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs and law-maker for Kitampo North is alleging the new 600 million US dollars cocoa loan is going to collapse the cocoa sector.
Hon. Ato Bonde said to Rite FM Austin Ofori Addo, investigations carried by the minority in parliament indicated that $5m of the loan will be used to buy chocolate for the children of lawyers, doctors, politicians and ‘big men’ in the secondary schools, leaving the ‘poor’ cocoa farmer of his many years of working on the cocoa farm.
The Akufo-Addo administration through the Cocobod is injecting a $600m stimulus package into the cocoa sector through a Cocoa Productivity Enhancement Program, which will among other things step up Ghana’s production to 1.5m tones by 2027.
The loan will target rehabilitation of plantations, improvement in storage and domestic processing, stimulation of local consumption as well as efforts to increase output on farms among others, and spans a 7-year period.
Government and COCOBOD believe that Cocoa, being a major pillar of our economy cannot be allowed to survive at its own pace. Cocoa farmers who have been the backbone of the Ghanaian economy already have good news for 2020 in cocoa price structure but now get an additional dose through this stimulus package.
At a news briefing in Peduase on Sunday of the sideline of the 64th Cabinet Meeting, COCOBOD Officials led by the Chief Executive Officer, Hon Joseph Boahen Aidoo said the stimulus package should increase cocoa production at the end of the 7 years from the current figure of around 850,000 metric tons to over 1 million metric tons.
He said this is the first time Ghana is focusing on a medium to Long term financing of cocoa.
But Hon Ato Bonde took government on following its words during the 2016 electioneering campaign.
“Why must we take loan when it was the same government who accused the previous government of taking excessive loans,” he asked.
According to Hon Bonde, the NPP government led by President Akuffo Addo told Ghanaians before 2016 election that, there is money in the country so when they were voted into power, they will not go and borrow but that is not what Ghanaians are seeing today.
Source: Ghana/ritefmonline.org/Rite 90.1 FM/Mavis Akosua Atteh
