Peter Boamah Otokunor, Director of Presidential Initiatives in Agriculture and Agribusiness at the Office of the President, says Ghana lost nearly $941 million in a cocoa trade deal due to inherited contracts priced far below current market rates.
Speaking in an interview with Gemma Appiah on JoyNews after meeting cocoa farmers in the Western Region, Dr Otokunor explained that cocoa beans bought from farmers at about $7,200 per tonne were used to settle older contracts valued at only $2,600 per tonne.
“You are buying cocoa at $7,200 per tonne from farmers and using it to pay a $2,600 contract. When you do the estimates, the loss is about $941 million from that trade alone,” he said.
According to him, about 240,000 metric tonnes of cocoa were used to service rollover contracts inherited from the previous administration, while the rest was sold on the international market at less favourable prices.
He added that the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) entered the 2025/26 cocoa season with an estimated GH¢60 billion in liabilities. These include GH¢17.8 billion in loans and about GH¢26.5 billion in cocoa road contracts awarded between 2014 and 2024.
Dr Otokunor said the legacy contracts forced the government to sell cocoa at low prices despite higher production costs.
He also noted that COCOBOD did not secure syndicated financing for the 2024/25 or 2025/26 seasons. The financing model, which had been used for more than three decades, normally provides funds to Licensed Buying Companies to purchase cocoa from farmers during the harvest season.
Without this funding, the losses from the rollover contracts created serious liquidity challenges, leaving the board unable to pay farmers and other stakeholders in the cocoa value chain.
Ghana’s cocoa sector supports about 800,000 farm families across the country and generates around $2 billion annually in foreign exchange.
Dr Otokunor said the administration of John Dramani Mahama is working to resolve the liquidity challenges and introduce reforms to stabilise the cocoa industry.
