COCOBOD MUST BE SCRAPPED If it cannot protect the very farmers it was created to serve,!!!!!

For generations, cocoa has been Ghana’s pride, the golden bean that built schools, roads, and livelihoods. Through coups, economic crises, and global price shocks, one thing remained sacred,the producer price was never slashed. Never.!!!!!!!! Until now. This reduction is not just a policy decision, it is a historic wound inflicted on the backs of struggling farmers.
Cocoa farmers are not speculators on a stock exchange. They are smallholders battling rising fertilizer costs, inflation, currency depreciation, and climate uncertainty. Cutting their guaranteed price in the middle of economic hardship is not management, it is abandonment and incompetence.
Legally, this move raises serious concerns.
First, the 1992 Constitution of Ghana directs the State to ensure the economic welfare of its citizens and prevent exploitation of vulnerable groups. Cocoa farmers, heavily dependent on a single annual harvest, clearly fall within that protection. A drastic price reduction undermines the constitutional duty to promote equitable distribution of national wealth.
Second, COCOBOD is a statutory body with a fiduciary obligation to act in the best interest of cocoa producers. Its mandate is protective, not punitive. Administrative law requires public institutions to act reasonably, fairly, and in good faith. When a board shifts financial burdens onto farmers without transparent justification, it risks violating principles of accountability and procedural fairness.
Third, there is the doctrine of legitimate expectation. For decades, farmers operated under a stable system where prices were either increased or maintained but never reduced. That historical consistency created a reasonable expectation of price protection. To break that precedent without adequate consultation erodes trust and invites legal and public challenge.
This is bigger than cocoa.
It is about governance.
It is about responsibility.
It is about justice.
If COCOBOD cannot manage its finances without punishing farmers, then restructuring is not radical, it is necessary. Institutions exist to defend citizens, not to sacrifice them. Ghana’s cocoa farmers deserve leadership that shields them from hardship, not one that deepens it.
And if that leadership fails, then yes the board must be scrapped and rebuilt in the true interest of the farmer