The Minority in Parliament has raised concerns about the management of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), criticising the rising administrative expenditures amidst declining cocoa production.

According to the caucus, cocoa production dropped to 655,000 tonnes over the last four years, while COCOBOD’s head office expenditure surged to approximately GH¢3.4 billion in 2023.

During an interaction with journalists in Accra on Wednesday, August 7, the Ranking Member on the Food, Agriculture, and Cocoa Affairs Committee of Parliament, Eric Opoku, expressed these concerns.

Mr Opoku criticised COCOBOD for allegedly misusing funds that should be paid to farmers and questioned if the cocoa was being grown at the office.

He urged COCOBOD to be more prudent in its expenditures and focus on the well-being of the farmers.

“In 2023, cocoa production declined further to 655,000 but office expenditure did not decline. It increased to GH¢3.4 billion. And the Auditor General reports to Parliament that this is largely due to headquarters expenditure. So COCOBOD head office alone is expending GH¢3.4 billion, while the entire Ministry of Agriculture is expending something around GH¢2.7 billion. Isn’t that strange?”

“The producers are sweating every day to get the cocoa for us. They complain of water, they complain of bad roads, they complain of so many things, they are not getting them.

“Even look at the producer price that we give them and you spend your money this way in the office. So are you growing the cocoa in the office or in the bush?”

Cocoa farmers in Segyimase in the Abuakwa South Municipality and Osino in the Fanteakwa South District of the Eastern Region have attributed the continuous indiscriminate illegal mining activities and forceful takeover of cocoa plantations by illegal miners popularly known as ‘galamseyers’ as a contributory factor to the decline in cocoa production in the country.

Some farmers in an interview with Channel One TV disclosed that poverty and lack of commitment from the government drove them into selling their cocoa plantations to illegal miners.

Eno Lawrencia Akufo lamented how she lost her cocoa plantation after her son sold it out to illegal miners in her absence when she visited the regional capital for a medical check-up.

Opanyin Emmanuel Takyi, an opinion leader and a former assemblyman for Segyimase, explained how activities of illegal mining have affected a total of 18 acres of his cocoa farms at three different locations.

Ghana’s cocoa output for the 2023/24 season is expected to be almost 40% below a target of 820,000 metric tonnes when global cocoa prices hit US$ 10,000 per tonne this year.

In the first four months of 2024, Ghana’s trade balance narrowed after cocoa exports dropped. On a year-on-year comparison, cocoa output fell by about 50%.

The situation is not different from Osino in the Fanteakwa South district, where about 40 to 50 percent of cocoa plantations have been sold out to illegal miners. About 70 percent of cocoa plantations have been lost to mining in Osino.

When the news team decided to visit an area that once had a cocoa plantation just along the main Accra Kumasi Highway to check its state, illegal miners were busily on-site, working.

They had dug deep pits next to ECG poles and transmission lines and left them uncovered just about 10 meters away from the main highway.

In 2022, the leadership of the Ghana National Small Scale Miners Association during a working visit to the same spot demanded the immediate arrest of persons involved in mining close to the main Accra Kumasi Highway.

However, a year on, the situation has moved from bad to worse as the illegal miners have mined the whole area including under electricity poles leaving them hanging.

The General Agricultural Workers Union (GAWU) says there are no immediate solutions to addressing challenges that have bedevilled Ghana’s cocoa sector. 

GAWU sounded the alarm bells on a possible decline in revenue generated from cocoa by the end of 2024 following a revelation that Ghana’s first-quarter cocoa revenue dropped by $500 million. 

Speaking to Citi News, General Secretary of GAWU, Edward Kareweh said despite the reality, the government must still begin cracking the whip on illegal small-scale miners to avert possible future damages to the cocoa sector.

“We just need to appreciate that there is no immediate solution in terms of reversing the negative impact of the galamsey on our economy and then on cocoa production from now until the end of the year. In fact, even if we stop galamsey today, it will take us a number of years to be able to reverse the harm that it has caused our environment.

“We need to do some reclaiming of the land. We need to rejuvenate the forest. We need to try and purify the rivers. And that will also take a long time. So we don’t have immediate solutions.

“But then if we don’t start now, we will never be able to have the solutions. So we must start now to deal with all these negative factors again.”