Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has charged some officials at licensed buying companies with using government funds to buy cheap cocoa beans smuggled from Ivory Coast.
According to the Director of Special Services at COCOBOD, Jake Kudjo Semahar, the practice is depriving local growers of income and jeopardising Ghana’s reputation for quality cocoa. He explained to Reuters that the issue had spread across four regions along the Ghana-Ivory Coast border. This marks a reversal from earlier smuggling patterns, when Ghanaian beans were trafficked into Ivory Coast and Togo.
“We were fighting smuggling of Ghana’s cocoa to Ivory Coast; now the reverse is the situation, and we should be concerned,” he stated.
Mr Semahar also noted that the practice is driven by a wide price gap, with Ivory Coast selling cocoa at the equivalent of 1,200 cedis ($107.33) per 64-kg bag, compared with Ghana’s farmgate price of 2,587 cedis. He added that some officers and clerks were taking advantage of the disparity to generate illicit profits.
The Licensed Cocoa Buyers Association of Ghana said its member companies did not approve such acts. General Secretary Vitus Dzah told Reuters that no licensed buying firm would sanction the practice, blaming individual clerks acting out of personal greed.
“They go to the extent of giving money to middlemen who go inside Ivory Coast and buy the cocoa for them. LBCs had suffered heavy losses from a similar episode in the 2004/2005 season,” he explained.
The allegations have raised concerns about a prolonged liquidity crisis that has troubled Ghana’s cocoa sector for months, leaving farmers unpaid for beans delivered since November 2025.
Semahar further stated that apart from denying farmers their income, Ghana is effectively subsidising producers in Ivory Coast. He warned that blending foreign beans with Ghanaian supplies risked eroding the premium quality status that gives the country’s cocoa its global market advantage.
The COCOBOD anti-smuggling unit has arrested four suspects and impounded over 100 bags of Ivorian cocoa in Nkrankwanta in the Dormaa West District last week. Semahar described the operation as the start of a broader crackdown.
