The Ministry of Finance has dismissed what it describes as unjustifiable calls by the minority in Parliament for a 50 percent increase in the producer price of Cocoa.
[contextly_sidebar id=”FSDfNRC7k460r6UnjJYNOuk7eSC1rHWq”]This comes after government sanctioned a more than 21% increase in the price of the cash crop from GH¢350 to GH¢420 per a 64 kilogram bag.
According to government, the price represents about 74 percent of Free on Board Price (FOB), the highest over the years.
A Deputy Minister of Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson in an interview with Citi Business News said the the minority’s demands are baseless.
He said the “mathematics behind the 50 percent increase won’t add up. I don’t know on which basis they are talking about because the 21.7 percent increase represent 74 percent of the net FOB price.”
He explained that there are additional cost that the Ghana Cococoa Board incurs “including the fertilizer, the spraying, the administration cost and others so I don’t know where they are getting the mathematics from.”
“They’ve been in power before, they’ve run Ghana Cocoa Board before what is their record. If they continue to say that, you have to look at their record and what they used to do. They were doing 71 percent of FOB and we are doing 74 percent of FOB, what is their record.”
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana