Cocoa smuggling across eastern border increases
Smuggling of cocoa beans across the eastern borders of the country is on the increase.
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This is because of the price differential between what Ghana pays for a kilogramme of cocoa beans and what Togo pays.
A number of foreign agents have invaded the country to entice local cocoa farmers to sell their produce to them at prices between GH¢150.00 and GH¢400.00 or mortgage their farms to them for a period ranging from three to eight years.
Daily Graphic investigations revealed that while Ghana paid GH¢3.39 for a kilogramme of cocoa beans the same quantity was sold at GH¢4.30 across the eastern border.
They said it was easier to send the produce across the border where there was ready market than to carry it over long distances across difficult terrain to the local cocoa sheds.
Members of the Cocoa Board Education Team on tour of the region chanced upon a group of smugglers carrying bags of cocoa on motorbikes at Kute in the Jasikan District towards the border.
They managed to scare the smugglers, who dropped the produce and took to their heels only to return armed to attack the carriers engaged by the team to carry the bags of cocoa for sale in Ghana.
The smugglers succeeded in overpowering the carriers, beat them up and eventually took the produce from them and crossed the border to Togo.
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In another development, the education team seized a large number of bags of cocoa from other smugglers on the Atikpui-Nyive road in the Ho West District, which they deposited at the Produce Buying Company shed at Hohoe.
Mr Prosper Zegblah, the Volta Regional Manager of the Produce Buying Company (PBC) shed at Hohoe, confirmed this last Wednesday, and said there was an increase in smuggling of cocoa across the eastern border.
Mr Zegblah noted that the practice would jeopardise ther realisation of this year's estimated target of 75,000 bags of cocoa. He said during the period 2009/10, when smuggling was at its peak, the company purchased only 8,000 bags but a year later, when the price was increased, this shot up to 45,000 bags and it increased further to 60,000 bags in 2012. He said the increase informed the estimate of 75,000 bags for this year.
" But we fear that with the rate at which the smuggling is going on, we might not achieve the target, " he lamented.
Mr Zegblah called on local cocoa farmers to consider the various interventions being offered them by the government to improve their living conditions.
He mentioned such interventions such as the provision of potable water, schools and good roads, health facilities, free mass spraying exercise on their farms and scholarships for their children.
While advising the farmers to desist from mortgaging their farms to foreigners since they rather stood to lose in the future, the regional manager appealed to the security agencies, especially the timber task force, which is tasked to check smuggling of timber, to also check the smuggling of cocoa.