The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) says the shutdown of the Cocoa Processing plants is evidence of a collapsing cocoa industry caused by failed government policies on cocoa.
Minority spokesperson on Agriculture Dr. Akoto Owusu Afriyie told Joy News the signs of the shut down have been on the wall because the plants are working ‘well below’ capacity for the past three years.
Management of the CPC have maintained the shutdown of two processing plants is ‘purely for maintenance’ of its plants.
They have explained at least 60 workers were directed to proceed on an annual leave while the maintenance works goes on.
PRO of CPC Ekow Rhule stated he is not sure when the maintenance work will be completed.
But the Minority spokesperson wants the the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC) to acknowledge, it has simply run out of cash to import cocoa beans from cocoa competitor country, Ivory Coast.
“I will be very skeptical about [CPC’s explanation]. I don’t know why they would be hiding it”
Dr. Afriyie explained the CPC contracted $60 million loan a few years ago to expand operations but is struggling to pay back because the company lacks consistent supply of its raw material, cocoa beans.
Cocoa Processing Plant
The company has been forced to produce below capacity,making it even more difficult to pay back its loans.
The NPP is backing the worker’s position that short supply of cocoa beans occasioned the two shut downs and not because of the need for maintenance.
The NPP running mate, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia who has toured some cocoa growing areas Tuesday, also blamed government for playing politics with cocoa farmers.
Bawumia’s comment
“The cocoa industry itself in Ghana is collapsing. If you look at the cocoa sector in the Ivory Coast and you look at Ghana, there is a clear difference in how the sector is going”.
“Under President Kufuor, the NPP raised cocoa production from 341,000 tonnes to about 700,000 tonnes by 2008. Thanks to the good work of the NPP, Cocoa Production hit the historic 1million mark in 2010/2011. This was due to policies like the Mass Spraying and Fertilizer Subsidy programmes as well as other policies, now these have collapsed”
“The NDC introduced politics into the Mass Spraying policy.. They forgot that cocoa farms are like a network and so if one farm gets damaged, it would spread to other farms and so it is not smart to discriminate like the NDC has done because it is farmers who create wealth for this country and so by helping farmers, you are helping Ghana”.
“Any government that therefore does politicization with a sensitive issue like cocoa is only damaging Ghana. This is why the Economy of Ghana is going down at the same time cocoa is going down”.
More soon
Source-myjoyonline.com
