COCOBOD sells cocoa through both forward and spot sales — Ato Forson replies CEO's new price defence

The Minority Leader Cassiel Ato Forson, has refuted claims by CEO Joseph Boahen Aidoo that Ghana's new cocoa farm-gate price of GHS1,308 is not in line with the international market’s due to forward sales contracts.

In a statement on Thursday, September 14, Ato Forson said "it is an indisputable fact that COCOBOD sells cocoa through both forward sales and spot sales," contrary to Mr Aidoo's justification that forward sales locked in a lower price.

Citing Boahen Aidoo's own admission that portions of next season's cocoa were not forward sold, Ato Forson said the current international spot price is around $3,600 per tonne.

Adding premiums and bonuses, he said this translates to around GHS3,100 per bag, much higher than the new farmgate price of GHS1,308 announced by government on September 9.

"It is therefore totally unfair and unconscionable for government to be giving suffering cocoa farmers a paltry GHS1,308 per bag as farm-gate price, which only constitutes 52.7% of the gross FOB price," Ato Forson decried.

He accused Boahen Aidoo of hiding behind insignificant factors like light crop volumes to cover up "failed sale and marketing strategy."

Describing cocoa prices as at a 46-year record high, Ato Forson reiterated that the pricing represents "gross incompetence, obscene corruption, willful negligence and reckless mismanagement."

Ato Forson who served on the Producer Price Review Committee when he was Deputy Finance Minister and has intimate knowledge of COCOBOD operations noted that the CEO’s "monumental incompetence" in managing COCOBOD will be subjected to parliamentary scrutiny.

The Minority Leader concluded by calling for the immediate resignation of the COCOBOD CEO over the low producer price for farmers.

The NDC has vehemently opposed the new price after their presidential candidate John Mahama also described it as a "rip-off."