Joseph Boahen Aidoo
The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) is expected to sign a $ 1.3 billion syndicated loan with a consortium of European banks for the 2017/2018 crop season today.
A high-powered government delegation made up of officials of COCOBOD and the Ministry of Finance, BUSINESS GUIDE gathered, are in Paris, France for the signing ceremony.
Details of the number of banks involved in this year’s consortium were not readily available as at press time yesterday, but unconfirmed report suggests there are close to 30 banks that signed up to the consortium for 2017.
The signing is expected to be performed by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo and a team of officers from Ghana and the respective banks.
It would be recalled that Parliament in August, this year approved $1.3 billion (GH¢5.8 billion) syndicated loan for the purchase of cocoa beans in the 2017/18 crop season to increase cocoa production in the next four years.
The signing ceremony, the paper learnt, is expected to be streamed live to journalists at COCOBOD head office in Accra at exactly 12:30pm.
COCOBOD last year signed a $1.8 billion syndicated loan with a consortium of European banks in Frankfurt, Germany.
However, the new board and management said the $1.8 billion had been exhausted despite outstanding payments yet to be made.
Chairman of COCOBOD, Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, said that the funds secured last year were not all invested in the cocoa sector to improve this year’s yield, saying “there is still cocoa out there that we must buy.
According to him, “Obviously, we did not use all the money to buy the cocoa. There are still commitments out there that we must take care of. There was indiscipline in the use of the money.”
By Melvin Tarlue