GCMA’s internal cocoa trade impeded by COCOBOD

The Ghana Cooperative Marketing Association (GCMA) says its quest to make significant impact in the internal cocoa trade is being impeded by the Ghana Cocoa Board.

Government restored the association's cocoa buying licence in 2006 and directed the COCOBOD to release all confiscated assets to the group.

But four years on, the farmer-based group has had to deal with high cost of renting of storage facilities while its cocoa sheds are occupied by other licenced buying companies.

General Manager of the GCMA, Anthony Yaw Yeboah says the association is performing creditably in the purchasing of cocoa after bouncing back to participate in the 2008 light crop season.

He however told Luv Fm “we don't have big capital to perform above average because we have to continue hiring private houses where we put our cocoa and quality control sometimes refuses to seal the cocoa in those premises but we can't do anything about it”.

Mr. Yeboah believes the re-emergence of the association is an opportunity for peasant farmers to have value for their produce to raise Ghana's cocoa production levels.

He said it is high time COCOBOD expedited action to restore all confiscated assets back to the association to help address challenges in efforts to improve the lot of farmers. “The people who are occupying (the sheds) are claiming COCOBOD allocated the buildings to them, so before they will move, they expect the COCOBOD to write to them that we (GCMA) are the new landlords so they can move or come to us for fresh negotiations.

“But infact it is painful that the COCOBOD is not putting in more efforts to write to these people and that is our main problem at the moment”, lamented the GCMA General Manager.

The GCMA was established by the country's peasant farmers in 1928 has in years past controlled over 40 percent of Ghana's total cocoa purchases.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh
Development / Accra / Ghana / Africa / Modernghana.com