To Defeat Galamsey, We Must Remember 'Cocoa Rehabilitation' (2)

ALTHOUGH the “Cocoa Rehabilitation' campaign launched by the Gold Coast Government in the 1940s--50s to save the country's cocoa industry from being destroyed by the “Swollen Shoot” disease was immensely successful, it was nearly still-born. It had tremendous drawbacks, caused mainly by a well-known social malady known as-- the “human factor”!

Gold Coast sciety, ike the Ghanaian equivalent that succeeded it, was immensely corrupt. As soon as the Government announced that a “repayment grant" would be paid for every cocoa tree that would be cut down to prevent “swollen shoot” from continuing to spread, cocoa farmers who had formerly attacked ”CR” teams, now befriended them.

Liaison Officers ("L.O.s") who were the first point of contact between CR and cocoa farmers, began to establish secret “contact groups” (based on close kinship/family links) through which farmers were able to get their cocoa farms officially “surveyed” and diseased cocoa trees in them identified and “marked” for cutting out.

Where the diseased cocoa trees were numerous, the trees were counted and payment made on the basis of a “per -tree-cut-down" system.

Where the diseased trees were few, however, a corrupt Liaison Officer, on seeing the preliminary figures, would convey them secretly to the farmer, and if he agreed to the advice of the L., the technical personnel would be induced to alter the figures, and thereby transform the status of the farm in question to one which was to be paid for on an “acreage” basis instead. The secret “understanding” was that after the ”payout” to the beneficiary, he would share “the booty” among all those who had co-operated to make the scam possible.

The wholesale destruction of farms was known by the code -term, “All die” and many people in the cocoa-growing areas became wealthy from the proceeds of the fraudulent practice.

Occasionally, an acutely intelligent ASO would smell a rat whilst going over the books of his personnel. So, some were sent to jail for cooking the books. But by and large, human nature triumphed over commonsense.

Later, the CR department amended its policies and used its own employees to carry out the replanting of farms, thereby deducting money from the replanting grant payout. The new scheme entailed a system known as “pegging and lining”. Under this new system, cocoa seedlings, usually of the more robust genus known as "Amelonado", were planted on “treated” farms and the farmers left to nurture them.

It is to be noted that ”cocoa rehabilitation” was conceived and financed by the Government of the day and its modalities created by the Government. But its operation was CONSTANTLY MONITORED and changes made to the operation, where and when necessary. .

Now, because “swollen shoot” occurred at a time when the Ghana independence struggle was at its fiercest, much political capital was made of its weaknesses. . But the colonial authorities, expert propagandists though they were, did NOT sit on their behinds and take the easy way out by attempting to combat “swollen shoot” with WORDS! Neither did they cover up for officials who were corrupt or ineficient in the struggle aganst the ”swollen shoot” disaster.

AND THAT IS WHY TODAY, WE STILL HAVE A COCOA INDUSTRY TO BOAST OF AND SUSTAIN OUR ECONOMY WITH!

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