Yaw Buaben Asamoa
The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) says the cocoa industry and the welfare of cocoa farmers have seen tremendous improvement under the current Akufo-Addo administration.
The party said the current increase in a producer price for a bag (64kg) of cocoa from GH¢515 to GH¢666 is about the welfare of cocoa farmers and not about politics.
The Communications Director of the NPP, Yaw Buaben Asamoa, who made these known at a press conference in Accra yesterday, said even when world prices for cocoa from 2017 to 2018 plummeted, the NPP government maintained the producer price for cocoa farmers even when it was under pressure from world bodies for Ghana to also reduce its producer price for cocoa farmers as was done by Cote D’Ivoire.
He said the government then increased the producer price for a bag of cocoa for the 2019/2020 from GH¢475 to GH¢515 and has now announced an increase again for the 2020/2021 from GH¢515 to GH¢666 which is an unprecedented increase in producer price to better the lot of cocoa farmers.
He said the government had introduced a new irrigation mechanism being powered by solar on the farms of cocoa farmers to ensure that cocoa trees get water all year round to help them bear more fruits and increase production.
According to the Communications Director of the NPP, the government, apart from supplying free cocoa seedlings to the cocoa farmers and also helping with pruning of cocoa farms free of charge, has also employed about 1,300 extension officers to help cocoa farmers with the application of right technologies to increase cocoa production.
“We now have 600 farmers being catered for by one extension officer instead of 3,000 farmers who were being catered for by one extension officer under the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) led by former President, John Mahama,” he pointed out.
He said the government was also introducing pension scheme for cocoa famers to help cater for their needs and that of their families in times of difficulties.
He said work on cocoa roads had started after the present government halted majority of the road projects for an audit to be conducted into the contracts since majority of them were dubiously awarded and cost hugely inflated.
He pointed out that from the government’s audit report on cocoa roads, it was realized that the previous NDC government inflated the cost of the construction of the Prestea to Samreboi road in the Western Region by 121.8 per cent.
He said the NDC government committed a whopping GH¢3.2 billion (64%) of GH¢5.1 billion budgeted money which the country did not have to just 74 projects awarded by the Ghana Highway Authority – not the Department of Feeder Roads.
“The 131 projects under Feeder Roads was valued at just GH¢1.5 billion. Again, the average cost per kilometre of trunk roads in the contract award was GH¢2.5 million; more than double the kilometre cost of the feeder roads at GH¢1.16 million,” he said.
He explained that in order to deepen accountability and protect public purse as well as ensure value for money due diligence had to be done and, therefore, the suspension of some of the road projects, not all of them.
He said those road projects that had to be completed in 2017 were allowed to progress and so far the government had paid about GH¢497 million and GH¢414 million in two separate installments to contractors engaged by the NDC to do cocoa roads.
“The suspension of the projects allowed for a re-scoping and proper alignment of funds as well as open competitive bidding processes towards the award of new cocoa road contracts,” Mr. Asamoa said.
“Far from what the NDC will want Ghanaians to believe, at no point within the current government was a decision taken to neglect cocoa road projects began under the previous administration,” he noted.
“Whilst the Mahama-led government could not honour the payments of contracts they signed right from 2014/2015 cocoa season, they continued to sign additional contracts till 2017 when they left office, piling up dubious debt,” Mr. Asamoa clarified.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr