Purchasing Clerks adjust scales to cheat cocoa farmers

Akim Oda (E/R), Oct. 22, GNA - Cocoa farmers at Gye Wani Nkwanta near Akim Oda in the Birim Central Municipality, have accused Purchasing Clerks (PCs) from the various Licensed Cocoa Buying Companies (LBC) in the area of cheating them, by adjusting their weighing scales. The farmers said the PCs very often cheated them through the adjustment of their weighing scales to the disadvantage of farmers and also failed to pay the cocoa bonuses due them.

This came to light when the Control Unit of the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD) organised a farmer's rally at Gye Wani Nkwanta for farmers in the area.

The rally was meant to educate farmers to maintain their farms and also to improve upon the tonnage of beans received by COCOBOD from that part of the municipality.

When contacted to ascertain the truth of the accusation shortly after the programme, Nana Asare Bentum III, Chief of the town, complained bitterly to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), about the attitude of some of the PCs, but said his elders would soon meet the clerks and find lasting solution to the problem. The farmers, who pleaded anonymity for fear of being victimized by the PCs, told the GNA that some of the farmers owned certain scales for monitoring the weight of the beans before sending them to the cocoa sheds or societies to weigh and sell. According to them, the Ghana Standard Board (GSB) had not certified some of the scales of the societies, because each time they heard that the GSB was around, the clerks intentionally closed their societies and disappeared.

This situation, the farmers hinted, made it difficult for the field officers of GSB, who check to certify the scales to remove the bad scales from the system.