Chairman of Parliament’s Finance Committee, Isaac Adongo, has said the former managers of COCOBOD under the previous Akufo-Addo administration must be lined up for cocoa farmers to whip them.
According to Isaac Adongo, the Ex-COCOBOD managers deserve severe punishment for their mismanagement of Ghana’s cocoa sector.
He accused the Akufo-Addo administration of failing to properly manage the critical logistics of COCOBOD.
Speaking to journalists on Thursday, February 19, Isaac Adongo stated, “When COCOBOD had 286,000 bales of jute sacks at the ports. They cleared only 91,000 and left the rest at the ports. Just a few days before they were leaving office, they contracted someone and paid GHC48 million to bring in 80,000 bales of jute sacks. These are reckless people.
“If it were possible in the days that we were whipping people, these are the people we have to line up and tell cocoa farmers that it is the conduct of these people that denied the government of Ghana the resources to properly take care of you at this point in time.
“So that we will give everybody a cane, and cocoa farmers will whip them. Then we will know who is at fault. But these are the type of people who can sing and dance better than everybody. They think that if you tell the lie many times, it becomes the truth,” he said.
However, Justin Frimpong Kodua, the General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has slammed the John Mahama-led government over Ghana’s cocoa sector crisis.
The NPP General Secretary stressed that it is “absurd” and “untenable” for the NDC government to blame its shortfall in the cocoa sector on the NPP.
According to Justin Kodua, the NDC government is lost in the ocean, and debunked claims that the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration mismanaged the sector.
He detailed that the decision by the NDC government to reduce the price of cocoa from GH₵3,625 to GH₵2,587 explains how the government is lost in the ocean.
Speaking on the issue of cocoa pricing on TV3 on Friday, February 13, 2026, Kodua explained, “Well, it would be totally absurd, repugnant, and unconscionable on the part of the NDC government to label any blame against the New Patriotic Party for their incompetence. At least they have been in government for over a year now, and when they took over the realm of affairs, they were mindful of the state of the economy”.
“In 2025, the cocoa price was around GH₵3,100 per bag, and somewhere during July, they increased it to GH₵3,600. So, when they increased the cocoa price, they didn’t accuse the previous government of mismanagement, of having destroyed the cocoa sector.
He argued, “If the sector was destroyed, how were you able to increase the cocoa price? So, that accusation that they are trying to label against the New Patriotic Party is untenable”.
“If you want to understand the real cause of where we are as a government, as a party, and as a country, then people will also appreciate that, indeed, the decision by the NDC government to reduce the price from GH₵3,625 to GH₵2,587 explains how the government is lost in the ocean,” Kodua noted.
The NPP General Secretary added, “This issue about the crisis started somewhere in October where cocoa farmers, after they had cultivated their produce, had to sell it to people referred to as purchasing clerks. In some instances where the purchasing clerks don’t have money, they take the cocoa bags under the terms and agreement that they are going to pay the cocoa farmers X amount, which at that time was GH₵3,600
“At that point, the farmer never anticipated that a day would come when the government would come back and tell the cocoa farmer that it had reduced the price which has been agreed between the purchasing clerk and the farmer… At what point did the government get to know that there were serious issues in the cocoa sector?” he questioned.