Ghana cocoa board reacts to reports that it failed to secure a buyer for its 2020/21 cocoa beans

According to the COCOBOD, the country did not fail to secure a buyer for its 2020/21 cocoa beans as has been widely publicised in the international media.

Cocoa buyers, traders and processors of cocoa beans agreed in principle to buy the commodity from Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire at $2,600 or above per tonne.

This consensus was reached at a conference with cocoa stakeholders in Accra.

After the consensus, Ghana tested the international market with the new price.

But Bloomberg report had noted that Ghana did not find buyers when the country offered to sell cocoa beans for the first time since introducing a surcharge.

“Ghana’s Cocoa Marketing Company, responsible for selling the nation’s cocoa, offered beans for 2020-21 to traders on Wednesday, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private,” Bloomberg said.

A statement issued Monday and signed by the Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD, Mr Joseph Boahen Aidoo, however, explained that the Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC) last week decided to go a market sounding after the introduction of a Living Income Differential (LID) and weigh the market reaction and its dynamics.

“We will like to correct the misrepresentation of the LID to mean a surcharge. The LID is part of the price component of the trading mechanism and not a surcharge as was reported by Bloomberg. The Management of Ghana Cocoa Board and its subsidiary Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC) Limited have observed with worry the inaccurate interpretation and publication by Bloomberg and other media house on the sale of Ghana’s beans,” the report said.

It added that “We, therefore, entreat all to disregard the news about Ghana’s beans not finding a buyer which seems to fall in line with a certain negative narrative of a challenge in the implementation of the well-understood trading mechanism.”

The statement also assured Ghanaian farmers and relevant stakeholders that the new mechanism has been understood to be the official trading system, and we shall sell at a price for the benefit of local farmers and the sustainability of the cocoa industry.