By Daily Democrat News Desk
Ghana’s cocoa industry, the backbone of the rural economy and a major foreign exchange earner, has been thrust into a full-blown crisis, compelling President John Dramani Mahama to summon an emergency Cabinet meeting to confront what insiders describe as a ticking national time bomb.
The emergency Cabinet session, slated for Wednesday, February 11, 2026, was officially announced on Tuesday, February 10, by the Minister of State in charge of Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, via a Facebook post that immediately ignited national debate. The announcement comes against a backdrop of delayed payments to cocoa farmers, collapsing Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs), and escalating financial pressures threatening the entire cocoa value chain.
At the heart of the crisis are thousands of cocoa farmers whose produce has been sold but remains unpaid, while beans continue to pile up at farm gates across cocoa-growing regions. The situation has triggered widespread anxiety, protests, and growing distrust in the system that has sustained Ghana’s cocoa sector for decades.
In a swift response, the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has indicated that it has begun releasing funds to LBCs to enable them to clear outstanding debts owed to farmers. The board has also announced that it is actively exploring new financing arrangements to restore liquidity and secure long-term stability in the sector.
But beneath these immediate measures lies a far deeper problem, one that COCOBOD Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Randy Abbey, says has been years in the making.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Daily Democrat, Dr. Abbey broke his silence and delivered what he described as “the unvarnished truth” behind the turmoil rocking the cocoa industry. His remarks came after weeks of mounting agitation from farmers, struggling LBCs, and a confused public caught between political accusations and economic reality.
“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.”
According to him, COCOBOD, working closely with the Ministry of Finance and the government, is racing against time to prevent a total collapse. Yet, he cautioned, the crisis did not begin today. “The truth of the matter is simple and complex at the same time. We are facing liquidity challenges, challenges that did not begin today,” he stressed.
Dr. Abbey traced the origins of the crisis to the collapse of COCOBOD’s long-standing syndicated loan system, a financing arrangement that had underpinned cocoa purchases for more than 32 years. Under the model, COCOBOD pre-sold cocoa through forward contracts, used those contracts as collateral to raise syndicated loans from international banks, and released 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, he said, were immediate and devastating. In the 2023/2024 crop year, Ghana struggled for the first time in decades to secure the syndicated loan. Shockingly, the first tranche of funds for that season arrived only on January 26, 2024, a full four months after the season had officially opened in September 2023.
To avert complete disaster, COCOBOD under the former CEO resorted to a $70 million bridge financing from the Ministry of Finance. Yet even that lifeline proved insufficient. At the close of the season, more than 333,000 metric tonnes of cocoa had already been sold under forward contracts at a low price of $2,600 per tonne, but were never delivered.
In a revelation that has sent shockwaves through the political and financial establishment, Dr. Abbey declared: “This is not speculation. 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 was catastrophic. COCOBOD became unattractive to creditors, effectively killing the syndicated loan for the 2024/2025 season. LBCs, including the once-dominant Produce Buying Company (PBC), collapsed under the weight of unpaid seed funds, triggering a domino effect 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.”
Rejecting claims that the NDC inherited a healthy cocoa economy, he disclosed that the current administration rather inherited a staggering GH¢32 billion burden. “The NPP has soon forgotten that the crisis our gallant cocoa farmers are facing today was created under its watch. They do not have the moral right to accuse this government,” he said.
Looking ahead, Dr. Abbey announced that since January 2025, COCOBOD has adopted alternative financing arrangements to keep cocoa purchases alive, even without syndicated loans. He confirmed that the Bank of Ghana and the Ministry of Finance are implementing immediate measures to permanently replace the failed model.
More fundamentally, government is rethinking cocoa financing itself. “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.”
He outlined bold reforms already underway, including a cocoa rehabilitation programme to reverse the dramatic production decline from 967,000 metric tonnes in 2016 to under 400,000 tonnes in 2024, and the restoration of free fertilizer distribution to farmers, a policy last enjoyed between 2014 and 2016.
“Today, we are restoring dignity to the farmer,” Dr. Abbey declared, revealing that farmers now receive 70 percent of the world market price, while government works to deliver over 333,000 metric tonnes of cocoa left undelivered by the previous administration.
As President Mahama’s Cabinet prepares to meet, the nation watches anxiously, Dr. Abbey’s closing words echoed like a challenge to history: “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.”
Ghana’s cocoa sector has reached a historic reckoning, and how this crisis is resolved may define not only the future of cocoa farming, but the legacy of the government itself.
