Smuggling of cocoa beans to neighboring countries has advanced from an activity dominant among border towns to the national capital, Accra.
According to Fiifi Boafo, Head of Public Affairs at COCOBOD, the illegal activity has become widespread that, even foreigners are engaged in it. This, he attributed to the strengthening of the cfa of Côte d’Ivoire.
“You will realize that it has gone beyond the border towns where now we have people even in Accra. They package it together and try to smuggle it out but the challenge now is that we even see foreigners, who are now involved in this business. So they come, they get the cocoa, and then they package it into different sacks which ordinarily, you will not assume that the content is even cocoa and they get it out of town into our neighboring countries.
“So that’s the challenge we are facing now. Of course, we’ve been able to make arrest just this March, about 1500 bags, which is about 93-94 metric tons and that is about over $200,000 worth of cocoa.”
Fiifi Boafo
The revelation comes on the back of the retrieval of 1500 bags of cocoa by the Anti-Smuggling Taskforce of Ghana COCOBOD. The statistics have revealed that Ghana’s cocoa exports dropped from a million bags in 2020/2021 to 600,000 bags last year, 2022.
The cocoa industry has experienced a myriad of challenges in past years and fears are that smugglers would worsen the shortfall in the current crop year if not nipped in the bud.
The level of smuggling is so serious that some districts, particularly, in the Western North region, are not reporting any proper purchases. It is reported that people are paying the farmers, but they are not sending the cocoa to the right place. For instance, people pay 800cedis for a bag of cocoa and then move on to sell it in Côte d’Ivoire because of the relative strength of the cfa.
“Past 5-6 years, Ghana has had better price than these neighboring countries but the cfa’s strength this year has given these smugglers the window they are dashing into. Yes, they will buy it 800 cedis from the farmer, so the farmer is not getting anything extra and then they take it across the borders…”
Fiifi Boafo
Ghana, in partnership with other countries to fight the smuggling of cocoa
This being the case, Fiifi Boafo indicated that Ghana is collaborating with her neighboring countries to fight the smuggling maniacs.
“The Ivoirians when they [the smugglers] started, drew our attention to it that they have realized that there are some people who are taking these cocoa from Ghana to Côte d’Ivoire. So yes, we are collaborating with them. Apart from that, we do not have that strong relationship with Togo; so that relationship doesn’t help much. But because of the relationship we have with Côte d’Ivoire, we are counting on [it] even though it does not yield the results we are looking for.
“One of the things we are also doing now, at least to ensure that the people, who when they see this will report to us is that; so for example, if you see someone who has loaded a truck with load or has cocoa moving from Ghana to Côte d’Ivoire, the value of that cocoa, [is then], given to the persons who report to the security agencies, who arrest them.”
Fiifi Boafo
This, he said has incentivized people, as they are now willing and ready to immediately come out and provide the necessary details of smugglers they sight, who are then arrested by security agencies reported to.
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