COCOBOD is in a serious crisis, it is baptized in debts, of course, the baptism took place in a pool of polluted water, created by greedy incompetent bastards who gave no attention to the nation’s cash cow, called cocoa. For over 170 years, cocoa, as a crop, has singlehandedly carried this country on its shoulders in all spheres of our national development. The various development plans of this country have depended largely on cocoa for all these years.
The crop has gone through various challenges ever since its introduction into this country so many decades ago. Apart from its being a major source of funds for our national development at most stages of our life, pre and post independent nationhood, it also influenced the nation’s initial infrastructural development directions. The construction of the Takoradi Railway up to Kumasi, what is called the Western Rail line was aimed at making it easier for cocoa and other natural resources to be transported to Europe, via the Takoradi Harbour which is also a colonial legacy from cocoa funds.
Cocoa has also become a produce of international political manipulations. The administration of the first President of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr. Nkrumah suffered an economic set back during his Seven Year Development Plan because cocoa prices on the international market were artificially reduced to affect this country’s forward march. At a point in time, a body called International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) which was supposed to be the cocoa industry’s answer to the Organization of Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) was set up.
Sadly, ICCO was dominated by the importers of cocoa beans and not the producers. I have not heard of ICCO for a long time and I surely believe that it collapsed long time ago. Being an agricultural crop, cocoa is also subject to the vagaries of the weather, in an environment where irrigation is not a major contributor to the progress of our agriculture, we do well when we have reasonably good rains, I say reasonably because if we have excessive rains, that also becomes destructive to our crops.
When the weather changes in the dry season, our crops wilt and farmers lose their crops and produce. Cocoa production in Ghana has been private driven all these while, governments intervene by guaranteeing their prices, offering inputs and offering technical advice to the farmers. Anytime any government mismanages the resources from the cocoa sector, the economy suffers just as when the production of the crop drops and also when the world price fall. The first two we have control over, but we do not have control over the world market price.
It is important also to note that infrastructure in the cocoa producing areas of this country is among the worst. Until some 40 years back, trains conveyed cocoa beans to the ports. Today, the beans are conveyed by trucks, further worsening the state of the roads which are predominantly under the Feeder Roads Department of the Roads Ministry of the Republic of Ghana and the least resourced among other roads.
In the history of the cocoa sector and its management, the NDC under ex-President Mahama has been the worst manager of the cocoa sector and its resources. The signs were on the wall, the reckless dissipation of cocoa monies under the previous CEO and management staff was an open secret to even those who did not want to know.
The NDC is priding itself with the supply of free fertilizers to cocoa farmers. Yes, the fertilizers were supposed to be free but they were found across the borders of this country. The farmers or majority of them never had them. The NDC is blaming the current administration of COCOBOD for ‘abandoning’ the cocoa roads, and they create the impression that it was the NDC which mooted the idea of Cocoa Roads.
This brilliant idea of using part of COCOBOD funds to improve roads in the cocoa producing areas was mooted by Hon. Isaac Osei and began by him. In the Western Region, if I do not know any of such roads at all, I can talk about the Asankragwa-Sefwi-Bekwai road which was on-going until the NDC took power in 2009 and abandoned it. I don’t think that road is completed as I write.
It is trite sense that a body like COCOBOD will plan its activities on the basis of its expected revenues from the sale of cocoa beans. Why did the previous management award road contracts that it did not have the monies to pay the contractors? At the last count, my understanding is that there is an outstanding indebtedness to the tune of GH¢4.5 billion in respect of both completed and uncompleted road projects under the COCOA ROADS project.
What was the total budget of the nation’s road sector programme in the year or years under the NDC such that the COCOA ROADS alone will leave behind that huge amount of unpaid bills? Now the NDC is questioning or better still, accusing the new administration of COCOBOD of having abandoned the roads and not paying the contractors. Why did they not pay the contractors if they had the funds? If they had the funds then they should tell Ghanaians the location of the funds and how much it is.
There is no single area in our economy under the NDC which did not see financial hemorrhage. In the year 2009, Fiifi Kwetei described Ghana’s economy as having been in critical condition. By January 2017, the economy was on life support with serious shortage of oxygen. Having left a dying cocoa industry seriously destroyed by official complicity in the galamsey activities which destroyed cocoa farms and thereby reducing production, with the problem further worsened by the drastic fall in the world price. The NDC without shame is turning around to blame the new administration for the woes of the sector. Shameless hoodlums! The least they can do is to keep quiet while the new administration cleans up their mess.
DVLA AND NEW DRIVERS LICENCE?
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) is about to introduce a new driving licence for drivers in this country from next month, precisely November 7, 2017, a report says. We are again told that a new vehicle registration smart card is to be introduced simultaneously. A change is something no sane person should dread, but it is normal that for the fear of the unknown, many people fear change.
However, when changes become too frequent without any visible outcomes, then any talk of change of whatever form becomes a threat. That is why the proposed change by the DVLA is going to generate some heat among the motoring public. It is sad that we have about five biometric forms of identification for various public activities when just one can perform those functions.
I think it is this multiplicity of identification which necessitated the introduction of the National Identification Card by the Kufuor administration which was terminated by the NDC governments. Happily, the Akufo Addo government, through the Vice President is championing National ID policy. Why then is the DVLA in a rush to introduce a new biometric and electronic Drivers Licence when it can wait and use the data from the National ID programme as a source to update the Drivers Licence if it has become that necessary?
Now read on. ‘A new driving licence will now cost GH¢257.00; replacement of an expired licence is GH¢155.00; licence upgrade GH¢345.00; replacement of lost driving licence GH¢205.00 and the conversion of a foreign driving licence will cost GH¢445.00. Why does the DVLA want to impose such huge sums of monies on the driving public at this point in time and at this short notice? What happens to those who have gone through the old process and have still not received their licences?
Are they going to be considered as fresh applicants under the new system and be made to pay the new fees or they would be deemed to have paid charges already? The DVLA is obviously one institution which is taking the driving public for granted and the earlier it was told the plain truth, the better it will be for us and its managers. Enough of this arbitrariness.
By Kwesi Biney