GH¢15 M for Cocoa Farmers

Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has aside an amount of GH¢15 million as seed money for the establishment of the cocoa farmers' pension scheme.

The Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Dr. Kwabena Duffuor who disclosed this on the floor of parliament yesterday, said COCOBOD, in collaboration with the National Pension Authority (NPA), had awarded a contract to 'Stallion Consultants Limited' to design the scheme.

The minister was answering a question posed by Member of Parliament (MP) for Agona East, John Agyabeng about the modality being used for the selection of farmers to benefit from the GH¢15 million, which was set aside in the 2009 fiscal year.

According to Dr. Duffuor, the farmers' pension or social security scheme had not been implemented.

He indicated that the consultant had submitted an interim report which was being studied for further consideration and action by the Board of Directors of COCOBOD.

Meanwhile, the finance minister said COCOBOD was building a database by registering all farmers to provide the relevant information for the implementation of the consultant's report.

Dr. Duffuor said the farmer database would help in making several economic/social decisions regarding the cocoa sector.

'The database will capture both personal information and farmer activities such as age of a farmer, location and size of farms, sale of cocoa beans, agro-chemicals usage, etc,' he pointed out.

By Awudu Mahama