Joseph Boahen Aidoo
Nana Wiafe Akenten III, the Chief of Offinso in the Ashanti Region, has expressed profound appreciation to the Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Joseph Boahen Aidoo, for his commitment and diligent effort at improving the cocoa industry and the lives of cocoa farmers.
He acknowledged that the COCOBOD Boss and the government were doing a lot of good work through the introduction and implementation of the Productivity Enhancement Programmes.
The Chief made these statements while addressing an entourage of senior management members from COCOBOD, led by its Chief Executive.
They paid a courtesy call on the Chief at his palace to pay their respect before going on to interact with a gathering of farmers at a cocoa famers’ rally.
Nana Wiafe Akenten III encouraged Mr. Aidoo to continue his good work and intelligent handling of matters relating to the welfare of cocoa farmers in Ghana.
In many instances, the Chief said, people put in charge of public organisations, such as COCOBOD, choose to remain in their offices, instead of stepping out onto the field to assess the progress of work across the country.
“It is only when you step out onto the field that you can properly assess the work on the ground”, he said in appreciation of the Chief Executive’s decision to intact in person with the community of cocoa farmers at Offinso.
“Cocoa is the backbone of this country. This has been the case from the time of Dr Kwame Nkrumah till now. We should ask ourselves, what we can do to improve cocoa farming and the cocoa trade and so today’s visit from the COCOBOD Chief Executive is very important to me.”
“Offinso is an important cocoa producing community. A national chief farmer has even emerged from this community before. It is true though that cocoa production has in the recent past years gone down and we all have to ask ourselves why that is the case and what we can do to improve production.”
Nana Wiafe Akenten III advised workers in the cocoa sector to be truthful in dealing with the farmers.