Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam
Former Finance Minister and Member of Parliament (MP) for Karaga Constituency in the Northern Region, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam, aka Anta, has identified the excessive pumping of dollars to shore up the cedi as one of the factors responsible for the cocoa sector challenges.
While it is sometimes acceptable to do so, doing it excessively as being witnessed today has negative repercussions, which is what is being played out in the cocoa sector.
He was speaking during a New Patriotic Party (NPP) activity last week, with the cocoa challenges standing prominent in his discourse.
This year alone, he noted that an amount of $2.8m has already been pumped into the system to shore up the cedi, pointing out that “this leads to the international competitiveness of the country’s exports. Three weeks ago, Randy Abbey said our cocoa is too expensive on the international market. Excessive valuation of our currency leads to more imports, which creates more jobs for the exporting countries,” he said.
Continuing, he said, “I told the Minister for Finance, if you know cocoa prices can go down globally what did you do? A good economist, a good finance minister will build what we call buffers.”
When the prices were higher last year, government “should have done what we call hedging. They didn’t build buffers. And when the prices collapse, they come out to say, oh, because of external factors.”
He recalled how when the COVID-19 and the Russian/Ukrainian war impacted negatively on the economy, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), then in opposition, refused to accept that excuse. Today, he said they are telling us that external factors are responsible for the troubled state of the cocoa sector.
“The NDC told the Akufo-Addo government that they just did not know how to manage the economy, and that external factors cannot impact the economy as they did.
“They decided to go to the spot market and now the market has collapsed, no buffers, no hedging, no forward sales, the result is that the price has been reduced,” he pointed out.
Slamming the government further, he questioned how those who are better managers of the economy as the NDC claim they are, now unable to pay cocoa farmers.
Some actions by government are mere populism, he noted, adding that when for instance inflation is said to be 3.8%, the cedi should depreciate.