Cocoa financing scheme launched at Offinso
Agro Cocoa Education Financing Scheme (ACEFS) has been launched for the farming communities in the country at Offinso in the Offinso South Municipality in the Ashanti Region.
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ACEPS is a cocoa farming project of the Government of Ghana established to secure education for children in the country.
The scheme is being managed by Agro Cocoa Investment Limited, a corporate entity established as an investment company legally registered to go into cocoa farming, and cocoa merchant and investment services in the country.
The company is managing the scheme in collaboration with the Offinso Municipal Assembly, the Ghana Cocoa Board, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ministry of Education, the Ghana Education Service and the Offinso Municipal Cocoa, Coffee and Sheanut Farmers Association.
Scheme preparation
Already, 2.4 acres of cocoa farmland have been earmarked for the payment of school fees within a period of 10 years for beneficiary children.
Interested parents could acquire registration forms at branches of Offinso Rural Bank, HFC Bank and CAL Bank at a price of GH¢10, while subscription fee is pegged at GH¢3,650.
Annual royalties of GH¢200 per hectare for five years and a scholarship for one child of the landowner will be paid and instituted for the landowner.
After acquisition of land, the cocoa farm will be established for a period of 36 months (three years) before the payment of school fees begins.
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Relevance of scheme
Launching the scheme at Offinso, the Director of the scheme, Mr Christian Darkwahene Oware, said the scheme sought to create, establish and manage a sustainable cocoa farming project for the creation of employment and, to a large extent, increase the annual cocoa yield to accelerate economic growth.
He indicated that under the scheme, the beneficiary child had the option to either attend public or private school, with the payment of fees covering 10 academic years but excluding accommodation at all levels of education.
He said fee-paying students at the tertiary level would not be able to benefit from the scheme.
“Apart from increasing annual cocoa yield for the country, Ghana needs to be restored to its glory of becoming the largest cocoa supplying country in the world,” he said.
Aside the quality and affordable education the scheme offers, Mr Oware stated that it would also create employment as well as generate infrastructural development, investment opportunities and high foreign exchange from cocoa beans, all geared towards causing positive change in the national economy.
He, therefore, encouraged parents and guardians to enrol their children and wards on the scheme to enjoy all the benefits it offered.
Old scholarship scheme
The Ashanti Regional Manager of COCOBOD, Mr Francis Kwaku Oyeh, indicated that the board had set up Farmers’ Scholarship Trust (Scholarship Scheme) as far back as 1951 to cater for the needs of children and wards of cocoa farmers who were pursuing various courses in second cycle institutions across the country.
He announced that about 10, 000 continuing and fresh students of second cycle institutions were being sponsored each year, and pledged his support for the new scheme.
The Western-South Regional Chief Farmer, Mr Johnson Mensah, who represented the National Chief Farmer, Alhaji Alhassan Bukari, said the Cocoa, Coffee and Sheanut Farmers Association was proud of the scheme, adding: “We trust that it would be an effective way of supporting cocoa farmers to secure education for their children.”