The Ghana Cocoa Board has told Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee that the company lost over 150,000 metric tonnes of cocoa beans to smuggling in 2023.

This was revealed by the Chief Executive Officer of the COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo when he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee Tuesday morning.

According to the COCOBOD CEO, cocoa production has also declined due to the activities of illegal miners (galamsey) and disease attacks.

He said COCOBOD was collaborating with national security and other stakeholders, as well as farm rehabilitation programmes to address the challenges.

Meanwhile, the minority members of the Public Accounts Committee have called for the immediate resignation of the CEO of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahen Aidoo, over what they describe as his inability to find solutions to current challenges confronting the institution.

Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, has doubts why officials, including President Akufo-Addo and the COCOBOD CEO, remain in office.

“As the country that produced the highest quality of cocoa, even at a point in time we were producing more cocoa than the Ivory Coast. And it got to a stage that Ivory Coast overtook us, this is what happens, it’s always like a twin relationship, sometimes we overtake them, sometimes they overtake us. One thing that they have never overtaken us is the quality of the cocoa that we produce. Why is it that we are no longer producing the highest quality of cocoa?”

When told that officialdom attribute the decline in fortunes to galamsey, Murtala sharply disagreed.

“What galamsey? The issue of galamsey didn’t start today, and I remember as a member of COCOBOD, issues came up and that was the reason why, frontally, under the leadership of Dr. Opuni and President Mahama it was fought frontally. I will not say we didn’t have galamsey, but the level of havoc that galamsey was causing to our cocoa is not as it is today.

“This President, indeed told everybody, that galamsey should be used as the only standard to determine whether he should continuously be in office or not, and he said that he was putting his presidency on the line. Today, every independent institution, including state institutions have admitted that galamsey is worse off. So this man should not be in office, he is unfit for remaining in office,” he said of President Akufo-Addo.

“If you have a chief executive of an institution such as the Cocoa board who admitted on national television that he has failed, why should he continuously be in office? Because if you say that, yes, smuggling has been a problem. It was so much last year and this year it has escalated, what then is your responsibility? Your responsibility is to find solutions and everything he said today is about blaming others for the problems.”