Pay cocoa farmers to save industry from collapse - Minority urges govt, COCOBOD

The Minority in Parliament has called on the government and the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to pay cocoa farmers immediately for all cocoa beans sold in order to save the industry from slipping back to the days of despondency and loss of interest.

The caucus also demanded an apology from the government and COCOBOD for the delayed payment, which it described as “gross dereliction of duty”.

It further demanded that COCOBOD reimburse the Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) the GH¢10 billion outstanding repayments for cocoa purchased and delivered, and to ensure prompt repayment for subsequent deliveries to avoid the recurrence of such a despicable situation in the future.

“We demand that our cherished cocoa farmers are treated better and with dignity than we are seeing now,” it said. 

Cocoa farmers aren’t beggars

Speaking on behalf of the Minority Caucus, the Ranking Member on the Committee on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs, Dr Isaac Yaw Opoku, said “cocoa farmers are not beggars and paying them promptly is not a favour but it is an obligation”.

The Minority’s call came ahead of the meeting between the Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs Committee to consider issues pertaining to late payment to cocoa farmers.

Release money to LBCs

Dr Opoku, who is also the New Patriotic Party MP for Offinso South, said the Minority Caucus had noticed with grave concern the precarious situation in which the cocoa industry found itself.

He said LBCs had failed to pay cocoa farmers for cocoa beans sold to them since November 2025.

He, however, said the LBCs could not be faulted because money that they had already spent in purchasing and delivering cocoa to COCOBOD had been locked up without reimbursement.

Constrained, he said the LBCs were not risking further monies onto the field, resulting in cocoa farmers being forced to either sell their produce on credit, sell on discount or go back home with their produce unsold.

“The situation portends dire consequences for our cocoa industry and the national economy, knowing what cocoa stands for in Ghana. “COCOBOD and the government must be blamed for failing to reimburse the various cocoa buying companies for purchases already delivered to COCOBOD,” he said. 

Hoax

Dr Opoku said the LBCs had borrowed from banks and off-taker traders to pre-finance the harvest, but, as of today, COCOBOD owed the LBCs over GH¢10 billion, being defaulted receipts of cocoa already taken over.

He said to continue purchases and further deliveries in the same circumstance would mean the piling of the cocoa taken-over receipts (CTORs) as well as COCOBOD’s mounting indebtedness to the LBCs.

Dr Opoku recalled a recent press release by the Head of the Public Affairs Department of COCOBOD that created the impression that enough funds had been released to the LBCs to purchase cocoa “but that was a hoax”.

“The reality is that farmers are not being paid for their cocoa sold to the Mahama-led NDC government since November last year.”

“For farmers who rely on cocoa as the sole source of livelihood, the past three months have been very trying moments,” he said.

At no fault of theirs, he said, cocoa farmers now found themselves in a quagmire.

“Having been deprived of their hard-earned income from the sale of cocoa for more than three months, some suffering farmers have been forced to sell their stocks at heavy discounts, plunging them into severe hardships.

Rip-off  

Dr Opoku pointed out that farmers had tended their farms through harsh weather, spent huge resources to control pests and diseases, toiled to harvest their farms and sold them to the government in good faith.

Yet, months later, they were still waiting to be paid, he said, asking if such action was part of “resetting or reversing of the cocoa industry”.

The non-payment of farmers for their cocoa sold, he said, was not just incredibly outrageous, but it was a complete rip-off by the Mahama-led NDC government of their incomes and livelihoods to the extent that some farmers were struggling to feed and provide for their families.

Many others, he said, could not reinvest in their farms to sustain the cocoa industry.

“This was the least treatment our cherished cocoa farmers ever expected from President Mahama and his NDC government.