The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) Joseph Boahen Aidoo, has clarified the board’s financing strategy for the upcoming 2024/2025 cocoa crop season, stating that the organisation is adopting a blended approach.
This comes after the Minister of Finance, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam, announced that the government would still seek external funding, despite earlier claims of self-financing by COCOBOD. In an earlier statement, COCOBOD had indicated plans to move towards self-financing for the cocoa purchases, with expectations of saving $150 million in interest payments.
Speaking at a media engagement in Kumasi on Friday (6 September) Mr Aidoo emphasized that COCOBOD will combine self-financing with existing external borrowing mechanisms. While self-financing remains a key part of the plan, he acknowledged that borrowing might still occur.
He further noted that COCOBOD had already tested the model during the crop season to buy and ship cocoa and would now scale it up.
“We are blending what we’ve been doing for years. There isn’t anything wrong with introducing a new thing. But while there’s an existing module, you can only combine that module with a new one,” Mr Aidoo explained.
“We have already tried it during the last crop season, from June up to the end of August. That was the model we were using to buy cocoa and ship, and it has worked, but we want to scale it. So even as we may be going for a loan, because when you talk about syndication, it is like going to borrow, and what we are doing will not require borrowing. So if we are blending not borrowing with borrowing, I don’t think it should become an issue.
“We want to implement the not borrowing, thus the self-financing. That is what we are starting the season with, and once it works, there will be no need for us to go for borrowing,” he stated.
Meanwhile, COCOBOD has also announced 10 September as the start date for purchasing cocoa for the 2024/2025 main crop season. The announcement was initially slated for September 1.
Sources say the regulator is expected to increase the state-guaranteed price paid to its cocoa farmers by nearly 45% for the season. However, Mr Aidoo who will not confirm or deny the report maintains farmers will get a satisfactory price.
With an increasing cost of farming and adverse implications of illegal mining activity in the cocoa sector, the farmers want an attractive price.
“Looking at how we suffer the government must present us with at least 6,000 cedis new price,” a farmer said.
SOURCE: DAILY MAIL GH
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