International Cocoa price drop a wake-up call – Mahama  

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Makay
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President John Mahama

President John Dramani Mahama has said the recent International Cocoa price drop must be a wake-up call for Ghana.

According to John Mahama, almost 70 years after Ghana gained independence, the country is still exporting raw beans to the world.

Reacting to viral video of a cocoa farmer who claimed, “Mahama wo de yɛ ka,” meaning “Mahama, you owe us a debt” while speaking during an engagement with the Ghanaian community in Philadelphia on Thursday, March 26, President Mahama jovially mimicked the farmer, repeating the words ‘wo de y3 ka,’ with the audience bursting into laughter.

President Mahama stated, “The recent incident with cocoa, with the prices plummeting, and you see all the videos of ‘Mahama wo de y3 ka’ of cocoa farmers protesting in the cocoa farms, is because for almost 70 years after we gained independence, we’re still exporting raw beans to the world”.

“I believe that what has happened in the international market should be a wake-up call for us, and that we must allocate more of our beans, and we’re taking the first step to doing that,” he indicated.

President Mahama added, “We’re changing the financing model. Before, we got the traders and others who buy the cocoa to advance the money for us to buy the cocoa from our farmers. Now, we say we’re going to raise the money ourselves and buy our own cocoa,” he stated.

“While we’re taking the money from the traders to buy the cocoa from our farmers, the collateral for the money they were advancing us was the cocoa beans. And so once you bought the cocoa beans, it was collateral for the financing they gave you.

“So, now if we raise our money, we buy our own cocoa. Our cocoa is not collateral to anybody, and so we can decide what to do with it, and we’re saying that we’re going to allocate the bulk of our cocoa to the local processors to process that cocoa before we export it,” he concluded.

Some Ghanaians reacting to Mahama’s response stated, “In crises, proper leaders find good and sustainable solutions to the crises; they don’t give excuses. If all this is done, starting with the tomatoes 🍅, cocoa, and then our minerals, Ghana will be there”.

A netizen added, “It’s just unfortunate, H. E John Dramani Mahama won’t be contesting for the presidential seat again”.

Earlier, President John Dramani Mahama said his government’s decision to reduce the cocoa producer price was difficult but necessary.

Mahama explained that the reduction was aimed at addressing acute liquidity challenges within the cocoa sector.

According to John Mahama, maintaining the previous price would have compelled the government to borrow billions, which he says could have taken the country back into economic difficulties.

Delivering his 2026 State of the Nation Address (SONA) in Parliament, President Mahama explained, “Mr Speaker, a nation that does not learn from past mistakes cannot get out of the cycle of problems that impose hardship on its citizens.

We have just begun to emerge from the most devastating economic crisis in our nation’s recent history. This crisis was triggered by general financial indiscipline, huge deficits and massive debt occasioned by persistent unbudgeted expenditure to meet the ends of convenient politicking.

In the last few weeks, we have had to take the painful but necessary decision to revise the producer price of Cocoa to achieve competitive pricing and resolve acute liquidity challenges in the sector. Failure to do so would have meant pumping in billions of borrowed funds”.

He added, “This unplanned expenditure would have taken us right back to the very devastating economic problems we have only recently begun to escape.

So, while fully understanding the concerns and protests of our farmers, I can firmly assure them that the reforms announced by the government will see a total transformation of the sector and guarantee them a fair price that enables them to meet the cost of producing the commodity and make decent margins.

The difference between economic hardships and avoiding the same is the exercise of sound economic judgement, and I am determined to take decisions that ensure our collective wellbeing and avoid suffering for all our citizens.”

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