Ghana's president-elect, John Dramani Mahama, promised to restructure the country's cocoa sector, aiming to boost efficiency and farmer profits.
Mahama questioned the current system where the state-run Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) competes with farmers for profits, proposing a new model with a state enterprise acting as both regulator and quality controller to ensure direct payment to farmers.
Elected on promises to address economic hardship and revive a cocoa sector devastated by climate change, disease, and illegal mining, Mahama plans a restructuring, potentially including private sector involvement, to tackle COCOBOD's ballooning administrative costs and inefficient spending.
"We're willing to work with anybody if it'll make the cocoa sector more efficient and bring back our cocoa production to what it was before," Mahama said.
On Monday, the cocoa prices hit a record high of $11,822 per tonne, nearly tripling this year due to poor weather and disease threatening the global harvest.