Eric Opoku
The Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Parliament has asked the government to stop selling fertilizers to cocoa farmers and give them freely to them because the previous Mahama administration paid for them during its tenure.
The Minority said the sale of the fertilizers to cocoa farmers borders on insensitivity, robbery and cheating on the part of the current government.
“We want to emphasise that cocoa farmers have indirectly through the producer price determination formula used for the 2016/2017 cocoa season paid for the fertilizer. Selling the same fertilizer to the same farmer is a broad day robbery,” the minority said.
The Minority made the appeal at a press conference yesterday in Parliament addressed by the spokesperson on Food, Agriculture and Cocoa Affairs, Eric Opoku, who is also the MP for Asunafo South.
According to the Minority, the NDC government, under the leadership of John Mahama, introduced the Cocoa Fertilizer Programme, to help increase cocoa production in the country and that the Producer Price Review Committee, before the determination of the producer price of cocoa, made provision for the purchase of 2.2 million bags of granular fertilizer and 1.6 million litres of liquid fertilizer to fertilise over one million hectares of cocoa farms free of charge for farmers in the 2016/2017 crop season.
It explained that upon assumption of office in January, 2017, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) replaced the Free Fertilizer Programme with a programme under which farmers are made to pay GHC80 for a bag of fertilizer.
The minority spokesperson said under the free fertilizer programme, each cocoa farmer was entitled to 7.5 bags of granular fertilizer per every hectare of farm and so a farmer, who has 100 hectares of cocoa farm, was given 750 bags of fertilizer free of charge.
“Under President Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government, the same farmer, who had 750 bags of fertilizer, will pay GH¢60,000 for the same amount of fertilizer,” the minority NDC indicated, stressing that the new policy that this government was implementing has exposed the Ghanaian cocoa farmer to intolerable levels of poverty.
The Minority also used the same press conference to call on the current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Joseph Boahen Aidoo, to stop making unwarranted pronouncements that producer price of cocoa would not be increased this year and that farmers would also not be paid bonuses.
He said it was indecent for the CEO to be making such pronouncements since the Produce Price Review Committee has been mandated to determine producer price of cocoa for every cocoa season, taking into consideration prevailing economic conditions in order not to impose undue hardship on cocoa farmers.
The Minority could not fathom why the present government had announced that it would neither pay bonuses to cocoa farmers nor increase the producer price of cocoa.
The spokesperson said that the NDC government in October, 2014, under former President Mahama, established the Cocoa Stabilisation Fund with annual contributions from Free On Board (FOB) price as a risk-mitigation mechanism against declines in the international price of cocoa
According to the minority, the primary objective of the Stabilization Fund was to sustain the earnings of cocoa farmers and to cushion them.
“The government cannot say it would not increase producer price of cocoa this year and also not pay bonus to cocoa farmers.
“We are therefore asking the CEO of COCOBOD to publicize how much money has accumulated in the Fund and its impact on cocoa farmers in this critical period,” the minority declared.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr