The Minority in Parliament has risen to defend former President John Mahama and his claims about the cocoa sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John Mahama claims the country\u2019s cocoa sector is on the verge of collapse because of the mismanagement of the sector by the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Addressing party supporters and branch executives at the start of his two-day campaign tour of the Western North Region, Mr Mahama said the government\u2019s failure to adjust the producer price of cocoa annually delayed payment of farmers for cocoa beans combined with other factors to destroy the sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) refuted claims by the former that the cocoa sector in Ghana has collapsed. It described such statements as misleading and detrimental to the cocoa sector, which forms the foundation of Ghana\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reacting to this development, Ranking Member on Parliament\u2019s Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs Eric Opoku accused COCOBOD of peddling falsehood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGhana COCOBOD must know that they cannot seek refuge in lies to cover the havoc they have wrecked on the cocoa sector, the untold hat ships unleashed on the Ghanaian cocoa farmer and the crass incompetence, mismanagement, recklessness and insensitivity demonstrated so far.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Minority accuses President Akufo-Addo\u2019s government of worsening COCOBOD\u2019s plight from the state where it met it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn 2017, the NDC handed over a prosperous and thriving cocoa industry with buffers in the cocoa stabilization fund, farmers\u2019 welfare fund, depreciation fund, farmers\u2019 housing fund, and others including GH\u20b529 million set aside for the rolling out of the cocoa farmers pension scheme envisaged under the P.N.D.C.L 81.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShockingly, the Akufo-Addo\u2019s government has dissipated all these buffers within 6 years, leaving nothing for the industry to lean on in times of difficulties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAgain, the Board has been incurring losses since Nana Addo assumed office. COCOBOD is yet to explain why the cocoa industry cannot be profitable under the Nana Addo\/Bawumia government. Available records indicate the following;
Year Losses
GH\u20b5\u2019million
2017 395.0
2018 78.2
2019 320.6
2020 426.0\u2033<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group went ahead to tout the NDC\u2019s records in the cocoa sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn the entire four-year period of President John Mahama, producer price of cocoa was increased by 124.1 per cent (from GH\u20b5212 in 2013\/14 to GH\u20b5475 in 2016\/17) contrasted with 68.4 per cent in the last six years under Nana Addo (from GH\u20b5475 in 2017\/18 to GH\u20b5800 in 2022\/23).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt must be noted that the highest jump in producer price in the last two decades happened under John Mahama in the 2014\/15 season (from GH\u20b5212 to GH\u20b5345 \u2013 62.7%).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Minority in Parliament has risen to defend former President John Mahama and his claims about the cocoa sector. John Mahama claims the country\u2019s cocoa sector is on the verge of collapse because of the mismanagement of the sector by the government. Addressing party supporters and branch executives at the start of his two-day campaign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43,1],"tags":[11261,147,13052,211,10387,946,11815,7971,12923,1747,9233,2355,7730,5196,5740,6579,12565,6496,9643,192,4521,2264,12429,11715,6638,5423,5721,130,12187,281,7964,1198,6558,3805,12103,4490],"class_list":["post-32428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-accused","tag-agriculture","tag-akufo","tag-bawumia","tag-campaign","tag-cocoa","tag-cocoa-beans","tag-cocoa-farmers","tag-cocoa-sector","tag-cocobod","tag-collapse","tag-d-c","tag-depreciation","tag-economy","tag-eric-opoku","tag-falsehood","tag-farmers","tag-food","tag-fund","tag-ghana","tag-ghanaian","tag-government","tag-havoc","tag-housing","tag-john-mahama","tag-lies","tag-losses","tag-mahama","tag-n","tag-ndc","tag-north","tag-parliament","tag-pension","tag-president","tag-price","tag-western-north"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}