The COCOBOD CEO is now in a better position to appreciate the challenges of managing a state institution, one which demands strategic planning from which emanate effective decision-making.
It is unlike sitting in the studios of a television station and heaping queries upon others at the helm simply because they do not belong to his political inclination.
His tenure as the head of the COCOBOD is inarguably one of the most chequered as it births unusual hiccups. The swollen shoot challenges in pre-independence times when diseased cocoa trees and others not relatively healthy had to be felled pales into nothingness when juxtaposed against what is being witnessed today.
The NDC campaigned with the price of cocoa as part of a grand design to take power…it worked and here they are confronted with a nut too hard to crack.
Randy Abbey and the NDC must be thankful to the Akufo-Addo for not succumbing to the pressure piled upon it by the then rampaging opposition as they took issues with the prevailing price at the time. They would increase the price of cocoa to GHC6000 farmers voted for them and they come to power.
With the price at GHC6000 as they demanded of the Akufo-Addo government the level of drop today which they claim is the best option under the circumstances would have been telling and likely to push the farmers to abandon the occupation.
‘Does it make sense’ kept resonating in Randy Abbey’s presentation during his engagement with the media. He asked whether it made sense for the engagement with the farmers by NPP activists. If it does not make sense now did it do so at the time the NDC pitched camp in the cocoa producing areas? It also does not make sense to purchase a new fleet of expensive cars for the COCOBOD when it is evident that the entity is financially troubled.
Governments can take special actions to manage situations such as we are witnessing in the cocoa sector today. Assuming that indeed the price of cocoa has dropped on the world market scene can’t government in other to protect the earnings of farmers cushion them with a financial intervention?
We saw what happened during COVID-19 when even though the country was in a lockdown salaries were not stopped and utility payments absorbed by the state.
Finance Minister Ato Forson told Ghanaians about a so-called rebound of the cocoa sector which at the time of the assumption of power by the NDC was in shambles as he claimed. Smart measures had been taken by the NDC he said in the last budget presentation which led to the rebounding outcome.
It is incomprehensible therefore when all of a sudden he turns round to tell us that the sector is not doing well and not supporting the economy as it should. Whatever happened to the rebounded sector through the adoption of smart measures?
Is the spot payment option, the NDC preferred template, not one of the reasons we are in this mess? The forward payment option would have cushioned us from the vicissitudes of the international market.
The blame-game being played by Randy Abbey is nothing but one of the contents from their playbook when there is crisis occasioned by their incompetence.
