Bolgatanga Central MP, Isaac Adongo, has launched a blistering critique of the management of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), describing a legacy of financial ruin inherited from the previous administration.
Speaking in Parliament on Thursday, Adongo revealed that the institution’s total exposure, including operational liabilities, had ballooned to a staggering GH¢60 billion by early 2025.
He likened the state of the cocoa regulator to a leaking bucket, questioning the logic of further borrowing before fixing the fundamental systemic cracks.
Adongo painted a grim contrast between the sector’s past and its current state. He noted that while COCOBOD recorded a positive net equity of GH¢1.8 billion in 2016, that figure collapsed to a negative GH¢3.8 billion by 2024. During this period, net losses surged from GH¢283 million to nearly GH¢6 billion.
Adongo declared, “This crisis did not come from nowhere. it is the product of years of debt accumulation, operational inefficiency, and pricing distortions. They pretended to be helping farmers while systematically destroying the institution meant to support them.”
A significant portion of the current instability stems from reckless forward-selling strategies. Adongo disclosed that during the 2023/24 season, COCOBOD contracted to sell 786,000 tonnes of cocoa despite an actual harvest of only 448,000 tonnes. This massive shortfall forced the country into embarrassing defaults and costly penalties.
The situation was further exacerbated by a global market collapse, where cocoa prices plummeted by nearly 70% between January 2025 and February 2026, the sharpest decline in over three decades.
To prevent a total collapse, Adongo announced a comprehensive reset of the sector initiated in February 2026. Key pillars of the recovery plan include:
Debt-to-Equity Conversion: Cabinet has approved converting GH¢5.8 billion of legacy debt owed to the Bank of Ghana and the Ministry of Finance into equity to restore COCOBOD’s net worth.
Infrastructure Offloading: GH¢4.35 billion in “cocoa road” liabilities—which Adongo argued should never have been on COCOBOD’s books—have been transferred to relevant ministries.
Ending Foreign Loans: In a major policy shift, the government is abandoning expensive foreign syndicated loans in favor of domestic cocoa bonds to provide stable, revolving working capital.
Farmer Payments: The government has already released GH¢855 million this week to clear outstanding arrears to farmers and stakeholders.
Beyond the balance sheet, Adongo emphasized that the reform agenda will tackle governance failures head-on. A new COCOBOD Bill is set to be introduced to ban “quasi-fiscal” spending, alongside a mandate requiring 50% local processing of cocoa starting in the 2026/27 season.
Vowing an end to the era of “cover-ups,” the MP confirmed that forensic audits and criminal investigations are underway.
“Those who mismanaged this sector will be exposed,” he warned, calling on Parliament to provide the legislative backing necessary to ensure these failures are never repeated.
