Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Isaac Adongo, has disclosed that the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) began 2025 burdened with approximately GH¢17.8 billion in loans and additional operational liabilities, warning that the institution was facing severe financial distress.

Addressing a press briefing on the current cocoa sector crisis, the Bolgatanga Central MP said the scale of COCOBOD’s debt exposure had become unsustainable and required urgent intervention.

“COCOBOD entered 2025 with roughly GH¢17.8 billion in loans plus operational liabilities. So loans alone were about GH¢17.8 billion by the beginning of 2025.

“If you add this to other obligations, you will soon come to realise that at this point, COCOBOD was bleeding with an exposure of about GH¢60 billion,” he said.

Mr Adongo argued that the situation made continued borrowing imprudent, stressing that the cocoa sector could not remain viable under such heavy debt.

“Certainly, that vehicle could not be sustainable and needed to be addressed,” he noted.

To illustrate his point, the MP used a metaphor, questioning the logic of accumulating more debt without fixing underlying inefficiencies.

“If you have a basket in which you put water to drink and the bucket is leaking, do you fix the leak before you put water inside, or do you continue to put the water inside hoping that some will be left for you to drink?” he asked.

Adongo criticised those he said were advising government to take on additional borrowing despite the existing liabilities, describing such arguments as "illogical".

“You have GH¢60 billion of somebody’s money. It’s not free money. You are not paying, and you are saying that we should continue even to go and borrow more,” he said.

He maintained that the cocoa sector requires a reset, insisting that government must confront the financial realities rather than deepen COCOBOD’s debt burden.