JASIKAN : Clarke calls for all-inclusive taskforce to combat cocoa smuggling

Cocoa

Mr Liriah Sylvester Clarke, Former District Secretary of Jasikan, in the Volta Region, under the PNDC has urged cocoa farmers in the area to collaborate with the security agencies and district assembly to form a taskforce to combat cocoa smuggling to Togo.

“For such a taskforce to be effective, the cocoa farmers should include personnel from the security agencies, the district assembly and cocoa buying companies to help reduce the menace,” he added.

Mr Clarke, who made the call in an interview with Ghana News Agency in Accra on Friday, noted that smuggling of cocoa in the area was due to abject poverty during off season.

“The reality is that most cocoa farmers either sell their farms or use it as collateral for loans during cocoa off season when they are
broke. The selling price of cocoa beans in Togo is higher than what
companies in Ghana offer,” he said.

Mr Clarke noted that “farmers prefer covering a short distance to sell their cocoa beans in Togo than to travel about four miles to sell their cocoa beans to the cocoa buying company in Ghana”.

He supported the call by Alhaji Abubakar Alhassan, National Chief Cocoa, Sheanut and Coffee Farmer, to set up a task force to curb the
cocoa smuggling along western corridor of the country.

GN/Ds