By Daily Democrat News Desk
Ghana’s cocoa sector, the lifeblood of the rural economy, has been pushed to the edge of a historic reckoning, and on Friday, February 6, 2026, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr. Randy Abbey, stepped forward to tell what he described as “the unvarnished truth” behind the turmoil shaking the industry.
At a charged press conference in Accra, Dr. Abbey addressed weeks of mounting agitation from cocoa farmers whose produce remains unpaid, Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) grappling with liquidity constraints, and a public confused by what he called “selective amnesia and political mischief.”
“Since last week, and even before then, we have heard the painful cries of our farmers,” Dr. Abbey said. “We are fully aware of the cocoa already sold but unpaid for, and the beans lying at the farm gates that have not been purchased. We take these concerns very seriously.”
He stressed that COCOBOD, working closely with the Ministry of Finance and the Government, is racing against time to resolve the crisis. “The truth of the matter is simple and complex at the same time,” he said. “We are facing liquidity challenges, challenges that did not begin today.”
Dr. Abbey traced the roots of the crisis to the collapse of COCOBOD’s long-standing syndicated loan system, a financing model that had sustained cocoa purchases for over 32 years. Under the arrangement, COCOBOD pre-sold cocoa through contracts, used them as collateral to secure syndicated loans from international banks, and provided seed funds to LBCs to buy cocoa from farmers.
“That system began to crack in 2022,” he revealed, when COCOBOD could no longer service both the principal and interest on cocoa bills and was forced to seek restructuring. “Once you declare you can’t pay your bills, the signal to the financial community is loud and clear.”
The consequences were immediate and devastating. In the 2023/2024 crop year, Ghana struggled for the first time in decades to secure the syndicated loan. Dr. Abbey disclosed that the first tranche of funds for that season only arrived on January 26, 2024, four months after the season had opened in September 2023.
To avert a total collapse, COCOBOD relied on a $70 million bridge financing from the Ministry of Finance. Yet even that proved insufficient. At the end of the season, more than 333,000 metric tonnes of cocoa, already sold under forward contracts at a low price of $2,600 per tonne, were never delivered.
“This is not speculation,” Dr. Abbey declared. “The money from an $800 million syndication facility taken by the previous NPP government in the 2023/2024 crop year cannot be traced in COCOBOD’s books as seed funds for cocoa purchases.”
The fallout, he said, made COCOBOD unattractive to creditors and effectively killed the syndicated loan for the 2024/2025 season. LBCs, including the Produce Buying Company (PBC), collapsed under the weight of unpaid seed funds, triggering a chain reaction of hardship for farmers, transporters, depot workers, port handlers, and thousands of indirect employees.
“It is therefore disingenuous,” Dr. Abbey stated bluntly, “for people who supervised or were part of this process between 2021 and 2024 to pretend they don’t know how we got here.”
He rejected claims that the current NDC administration inherited a functioning cocoa economy. “The NPP has soon forgotten that the crisis our gallant cocoa farmers are facing today was created under its watch,” he said. “They do not have the moral right to accuse this government.”
Turning to solutions, Dr. Abbey announced that COCOBOD has since January 2025 adopted alternative financing arrangements to keep cocoa purchases going, even without syndication. He confirmed that the Bank of Ghana and the Ministry of Finance are implementing immediate measures to permanently substitute the syndicated loan model.
More importantly, he said, government is rethinking cocoa financing to free Ghana from the trap of selling raw beans as collateral. “Under syndication, you mortgage your beans before they are even harvested,” he explained. “We are exploring more sustainable models that add value and protect national interest.”
Dr. Abbey outlined bold interventions already underway: a cocoa rehabilitation programme to reverse the production decline from 967,000 metric tonnes in 2016 to under 400,000 tonnes in 2024, and a return to free fertilizer distribution for farmers. A policy last enjoyed between 2014 and 2016.
He reminded Ghanaians that fertiliser procured for free distribution in 2016/2017 was later sold to farmers for GH¢80 per bag under the NPP. “Today, we are restoring dignity to the farmer,” he said.
He also disclosed that farmers are now receiving 70 percent of the world market price, while the NDC government is gradually delivering over 333,000 metric tonnes of cocoa left undelivered by the previous administration.
In a firm conclusion, Dr. Abbey declared: “This government inherited a broken system, but we are fixing it. The cocoa farmer will not be abandoned. History will record who created the mess, and who cleaned it up.”
