Pay us our monies since October – Cocoa farmers cry out

Cocoa farmers across the country are on the neck of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) to pay monies owed them since October.

Currently, a bag of cocoa costs GH¢660.00 per 64kg sack and the cocoa farmers say the License Buying Companies are paying them in bits instead of paying them in full.

With over 500,000 members across the country, the Ghana National Cocoa Farmers Association accused COCOBOD and the License Companies of denying them the right to their own monies.

“Since October, they have been paying us in ‘tots’. When we send our cocoa to the buying companies, they buy it but they don’t give us the money. The ‘tots’ payment I am talking about is that when you send your cocoa and let us say it is GH¢600.00, the buyer will pay you GH¢100, GH¢200, but they don’t pay you in full,” President of the Ghana National Cocoa Farmers Association Anane Boateng Stephenson told host of the morning show on 3FM Alfred Ocansey on Tuesday.

“You know we are now in a minor season and the ‘tots’ payment is not helping us. We don’t know whether COCOBOD has paid them or not but they [buying companies] say COCOBOD has not paid them.

“We have made all the enquiries as to why it is happening but almost every agency tells you the same story. We are in the community now and almost all the farmers in every community are complaining.”

The back and forth between COCOBOD and the buyers are said to be inflicting pain on the farmers as they have no means of verifying the facts for themselves.

So far, snippets of information coming from COCOBOD points to the fact that some amounts of monies have been advanced to the buyers to be given to farmers.

Earlier this year, COCOBOD admitted that it owed cocoa farmers some monies after the farmers’ complaint to them.  

It says it will set the record straight by the close of Tuesday.

Source: 3news.com