Ghana COCOBOD warns defaulting LBCs over bonus payment to farmers
The Management of the Cocoa Marketing Board (COCOBOD) has issued a warning to Licensed Buying Companies who have failed to date to pay approved bonuses to cocoa farmers.
In a press release issued Friday August 14, 2009 and copied to ghanabusinessnews.com, it said information reaching it indicates that some Cocoa Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) have to date not paid the second tranche of the 2007/2008 bonuses to farmers even though monies have long been released to them for payment to be effeted.
The COCBOD therefore, is reminding all such defaulting companies that “failure to pay bonuses to farmers is a serious malpractice under the Regulations and Guidelines on Internal Marketing of Cocoa.”
The Management of COCOBOD, advised defaulting LBCs to pay all outstanding bonuses to cocoa farmers without delay, failing which, severe sanctions will be applied.
The COCOBOD at the end of July 2009, announced that the government of Ghana has released funds for the payment of bonuses to the country’s cocoa farmers. According to the information an amount of GH¢21,228,637.11 was made available for the payment of the second tranche of bonuses in July, 2009 for the 2008/2009 crop season.
Ghana is the second largest producer of cocoa in the world.
The country’s cocoa exports have seen remarkable growth in the last one year. And this has been attributed to the success of the mass cocoa spraying exercise initiated by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.
According to the Bank of Ghana, exports of cocoa beans and products for the first half of 2009 amounted to US$1,060.97 billion (an annual growth of 16.6 percent) compared with US$909.96 million for the same period in 2008 (annual growth of 22.6 percent).
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi