The Management and Board of Directors of Kuapa Kokoo Co-operative Cocoa Farmers & Marketing Union Limited (KKFU) and Kuapa Kokoo Limited (KKL), have declared zero tolerance for fraudulent activities in all the areas they operate.

They have, in effect, resolved to deploy technological tools as part of the programs and policies they intend rolling out to help weed out corrupt officers who have intentions of enriching themselves at the expense of the cocoa farmer.

The Managing Director of Kuapa Kokoo Limited (KKL), Mr. Samuel Adimado, addressing a gathering at the grand opening of the 25th Anniversary of Kuapa Kookoo Co-operative Cocoa Farmers & Marketing Union Limited at Tepa, Thursday, said the company will this year, network all its operation centers across the country electronically with state of the art equipment.

In addition to that, they will strengthen the purchasing powers of their recorders by providing them with funds required while also build on the capacity levels of their district managers on the usage of electronic purchasing equipment they are seeking to deploy.

The event was on the theme ‘Celebrating 25 years of pioneering sustainable cocoa production’. 

“This will help management to closely monitor all activities and transactions at our various units across the country in real time,” he noted to the applause of the gathering.

Besides these technological tools, Mr. Adimado said, the company would also deploy a high-powered task force to support and sustain their anti-corruption efforts, stressing that management has the backing and or support from their “most gallant farmers”.

Mr. Adimado also reiterated the company’s resolve to eradicating child labour activities in their respective farms through ‘Back to School Project’ while investing heavily in health care delivery to farmers in the hard-to-reach areas of cocoa growing communities through their Mobile Clinic system.

The President of KKFU, Madam Fatima Ali, commenting on the event said the focus of the cocoa farmers’ co-operative organization is to leverage on ICT to promote Tele-Agric and Tele-Medicine to transform Agriculture and improve the health of farmers in Ghana.

To this end, she said KKFU and KKL together with their partners, Millennium Promise Alliance (MPA), are going to train the farmers and provide them with smart mobile phones each to enable them to access the maiden Tele-Agric center in Ghana.

The Country Director of MPA, Chief Nat Ebo Nsarko, on his part, said talks are currently underway to extend the Tele-Agric centre to cover the entire country.

The Tele-Agric center, according to Mr. Nsarko, was set up at an estimated cost of US$460,000 and will serve as an information path for timely and reliable information to farmers.

The facility, he added, has an electronic agric library attached to it and can serve over 900,000 farmers across Ghana.

Mr. Nsarko further told the gathering that the Tele-Agric center would be run in different local languages and will recruit, train and deploy experienced agric extension officers, agric researchers and professionals to provide information to bridge the disconnection between academia and farmers to enhance agric practice for improved production.

The Executive Director, Cocoa Health & Extension Division, COCOBOD, Mr. Emmanuel Opoku, in a solidarity message appealed to cocoa farmers to support the government in the cocoa tree replanting exercise it has introduced to boost future production.

Activities of the year-long Silver Jubilee celebrations of Kuapa Kooko include;

Official Launch  on Thursday 19th April, 2018 @ Tepa

Institutional Debate & Public Lecture at International Conference Center – Accra on 30th April, 2018 on the theme: Empowering and Attracting the 2nd Generation (Cocoa) Farmers in the Ghana Beyond Aid.

Launch of Young Women in Cocoa Production at Kokofu/Kumasi on Friday 11th May, 2018