The Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr Emmanuel Opoku has revealed that his outfit will in the coming week secure about $200 million dollars to settle the arrears owed some License Buying Companies (LBCs) and farmers across the country.
This follows yesterday’s summoning of the CEO of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo by the First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei Owusu, over concerns raised by MP for Buem, Kofi Adams regarding COCOBOD’s indebtedness to some LBCs for cocoa supplied by farmers across the country. The Buem MP indicated that the inability of COCOBOD to pay the LBCs has affected the livelihoods of cocoa farmers since LBCs are unable to pay the cocoa producers.
Speaking in an interview, Dr Emmanuel Opoku mentioned that COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the patronage of cocoa beans on the world market and has in turn increased cocoa producer prices thereby affecting the availability of cocoa contracts to drawdown.
“Two years ago, we [COCOBOD] got $1.3 billion to buy cocoa and we were able to buy about 770, 000 tonnes of cocoa. But that was not the same in 2020 because of Covid-19. We all know that Kotoka International Airport was closed and many other airports around the world were also closed.
“And we know that cocoa consumption is mainly by chocolate. But worldwide, when processors realized that they were not making sales it affected the world cocoa markets; prices dropped, buyers stopped buying cocoa beans because they are not selling chocolate and other cocoa products,” he stated.
Dr Emmanuel Opoku
Commenting on the cocoa syndicated loan, the deputy CEO said COCOBOD could not secure enough contracts in 2020 to facilitate the withdrawal of funds from the facility.
“If you go to the market, nobody is buying cocoa and you can only drawdown when you have contract to guarantee repayment.
“So, because of the Covid-19 challenge, we decided that we will maintain the $1.3 billion as the loan we will take. We realized that if we go for $1.8 billion, we will have challenges selling cocoa to raise enough guarantees to drawdown and even with the $1.3 billion we still encountered problems,” he emphasized.
Dr Emmanuel Opoku, COCOBOD’s Deputy CEO
He, however, revealed that COCOBOD is liaising with government and Bank of Ghana to raise additional funding to settle its debts in the shortest possible time.
“Within the next one week, we will have money to pay the LBCs we still owe. This is something that the entire Ghanaian community need to understand, because we all know that Covid-19 has affected every economic activity worldwide,” he pleaded.
Meanwhile, officials of COCOBOD are to appear before Parliament to brief legislators on measures that are being implemented to resolve the problem.
Read also: COCOBOD CEO to appear before Parliament
