The Ranking Member of Parliament\u2019s Economy Committee and MP for Ofoase\/Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has accused the government of shortchanging cocoa farmers despite recent announcements of a major increase in the producer price of cocoa.<\/p>\n
His comments come in the wake of the government\u2019s decision to raise the producer price of cocoa from US$3,100 to US$5,040 per tonne for the 2025\/2026 season \u2014 a 62.58% jump in dollar terms.<\/p>\n
The new price, approved by the Producer Price Review Committee (PPRC) chaired by Finance Minister, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, takes effect from Thursday, August 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is instructive to note that the Government has by this decision increased the producer price significantly by 62.58% in US$ terms,\u201d Dr Forson stated.<\/p>\n
However, speaking on Eyewitness News on Monday, August 4, Mr Oppong Nkrumah criticized the increase as deceptive, arguing that the real impact on farmers is minimal.<\/p>\n
He explained that the actual increase in the price of a bag of cocoa in Cedi terms is just GHS128 \u2014 from GHS3,100 to GHS3,228.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cocoa farmer is not interested in the FOB price they came to quote. The farmer is only interested in the price of a bag of cocoa,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to him, the ruling government, while in opposition, promised cocoa farmers a producer price of GHS6,000 per tonne, a promise he says has not been fulfilled.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they [NDC] had actually pegged the price at GHS6,000 as promised, then today they would been announcing a reduction from GHS6,000 to GHS3,228. Does anybody believe this? That is hogwash,\u201d he fumed.<\/p>\n
He accused the government of using misleading figures to create a false sense of progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, they are in power and they cannot afford even a decent 5%, 10%, or 15% increase in the farmgate price. They are only resorting to this gymnastics of FOB price and the others,\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to submit to you in all humility that the government has scammed the Ghanaian cocoa farmer. What they promised in opposition is significantly different from what they are delivering in power,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ranking Member of Parliament\u2019s Economy Committee and MP for Ofoase\/Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has accused the government of shortchanging cocoa farmers despite recent announcements of a major increase in the producer price of cocoa. His comments come in the wake of the government\u2019s decision to raise the producer price of cocoa from US$3,100 to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123457,"featured_media":12232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3788,18],"tags":[2337],"class_list":["post-12231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-politics","tag-kojo-oppong-nkrumah-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12231"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12233,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12231\/revisions\/12233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}