Days of diverting cocoa inputs are over’ – COCOBOD CEO

The Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has issued a stern warning to individuals and officials involved in the diversion, hoarding or illegal sale of free fertiliser and other farm inputs, saying a new digital monitoring system will make it easier to identify and prosecute offenders.

Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD, Dr Randy Abbey, said the days when inputs intended for cocoa farmers could be diverted without detection were over, following the introduction of a digital tracking mechanism under the relaunched Free Fertiliser Distribution Programme.

Addressing farmers and stakeholders at the relaunch in Sefwi Wiawso in the Western North Region, he said the system would track every consignment from the point it left a warehouse until it reached the farmer for whom it was intended.

“Let me send a clear and unequivocal warning to smugglers and saboteurs. The days of diverting inputs meant for our farmers are over. Any officer, buyer, or individual found diverting, hoarding, reselling, or smuggling these inputs will be dealt with according to the law,” he said.

Dr Abbey said the digital system was being deployed to close loopholes that had allowed subsidised and free agricultural inputs to find their way onto the open market, or be smuggled across borders instead of reaching cocoa-growing communities.

Under the new arrangement, eligibility will be restricted to registered cocoa farmers whose farms have been mapped and recorded on COCOBOD’s digital Cocoa Management System (CMS).

At distribution centres, farmers will be required to establish their identities with their farmer identification cards, Ghana Cards or biometric details. The measures, he explained, were intended to prevent impersonation and eliminate fictitious names from beneficiary records.

The quantities allocated to each farmer will be determined automatically by the system, taking into account the size and condition of the farm. Distribution officers will therefore have no authority to alter individual allocations.

Every bag to be accounted for

Dr Abbey said the digital monitoring process would create a record of every consignment as it moved from warehouses to district and community distribution points.

Each bag issued would be linked to the identity of its recipient, enabling officials at the district, regional and national levels to monitor the process and identify irregularities as they occurred.

“Every bag issued is tagged against the name of the farmer who received it. At any moment, we can reconcile what was dispatched against what was received and what was issued. A bag that goes missing now leaves a trail,” he said.

He said the arrangement was expected to reduce the influence of personal connections and favouritism in the distribution of inputs, while ensuring that smallholder farmers, women, young farmers and elderly producers received their allocations without having to pay unofficial fees.

Farmers whose farms had not been captured on the CMS were urged to contact their agricultural extension officers to complete the registration and mapping process.

Dr Abbey also tasked extension officers to ensure that all cocoa farmers and their farms in their respective districts were registered and properly mapped to prevent eligible producers from being left out.

Free fertiliser policy

The COCOBOD chief executive described the shift from a 50 per cent fertiliser subsidy to the provision of free fertiliser as a significant change in the support available to cocoa farmers.

He said the policy was intended to remove the cost of fertiliser as a barrier to farm productivity and improve the capacity of farmers to maintain their farms and increase output.

The programme was relaunched under the theme, “Cocoa Sector Reset: Free Fertiliser for Increased Productivity and Improved Farmer Income”.

For his part, COCOBOD Board Chairman, Dr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, reaffirmed the government’s commitment to interventions aimed at raising cocoa production and improving the incomes of farmers.

The relaunch forms part of efforts to reset the cocoa sector, with the new tracking system expected to strengthen accountability in the distribution of inputs and ensure that the benefits reach the farmers for whom they are intended.