A contributing cause to the rise in cocoa smuggling into neighboring countries, according to the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), is Ghana’s comparatively low cocoa prices.
The government has suffered enormous financial losses as a result of this predicament, and cocoa growers are now in a desperate condition.
It’s serious. We were worried about the potential for smuggling at the start of the year. People crossing international boundaries to trade cocoa is extremely prevalent. According to COCOBOD’s head of public affairs, Fiifi Boafo, “Over the years, it’s been because we have better costs compared to our neighboring nations.
Given that the anti-smuggling task team, working with security groups, had confiscated more than 1,500 bags of smuggled cocoa beans in just two weeks, he voiced alarm.
The Citi Morning Show’s Bernard Avle was advised by Fiifi Boafo that Ghana’s continued cocoa smuggling cartel’s activities will have a negative impact on the nation’s cocoa crop.
He added, “If cocoa beans are smuggled across the border, then there would be no money for COCOBOD, and it looks that a sizable volume of cocoa will be lost to these smuggling activities.
When the cocoa beans were being transported, arrests were made in Greater Accra, Volta, and Western North regions. The smuggled beans were from the Western North and Volta regions.
“We have learned that smuggling is now occurring in Accra as well as the border towns. The problem currently is that there are foreigners working in this industry who have packed it so that you wouldn’t know it included cocoa and sent it out of the country. The issue we are facing right now is that. The farmer receives nothing since the foreigners gave the smugglers a chance to profit.
But how does COCOBOD plan to reverse this worrisome pattern?
“To get greater outcomes, we are partnering with Ivory Coast. Other from that, it doesn’t really help because we don’t have a good relationship with Togo. One of the things we’re also doing is giving the witnesses and reporters two-thirds of the cocoa’s worth, which has encouraged individuals to provide us with information, Fiifi Boafo continued.
Due to a number of issues, including over-aged trees and climate change, Ghana had a shortage of 300,000 metric tonnes of cocoa in the harvest season of 2021–2022, the lowest in 15 years. If not stopped in their tracks, traffickers might increase the crop year’s present shortage, according to worries.
For many years, cocoa beans have been smuggled illegally between the Ivory Coast and Ghana, which is nearby.
Smuggling of cocoa between Ghana and the Ivory Coast occurs often, with the direction of the trafficking varying according to the price differential between the two nations.