Government cancels GHC225m cocoa contract awarded by Opuni

A contract worth GHC225million that was awarded by the erstwhile John Dramani Mahama-led government for the supply of farm inputs has been cancelled by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo upon the advice of the newly inaugurated Board of Cocobod.

The name of the contractor is immediately not known.

However, the company, Kasapafmonline.com understands, was contracted to supply pesticides, weedicides, fungicides, insecticides and fertilizers to COCOBOD for onward distribution to cocoa farmers across the country.

It was expected to have supplied samples of the products to the Cocoa Research Institute for testing and also to raise the needed certificate for the said goods for approval.

But these agreements were not honoured, necessitating the abrogation of the said contract by the government.

New Board Chairman of Cocobod, Mr. Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, made this revelation in an interview with Kasapa FM’s Akwasi Nsiah on Kasapa News, Tuesday, March 28, 2017.

He further said that the new Board will ensure that all the things that went wrong under the immediate past Chief Executive Officer of Cocobod, Dr. Stephen Opuni, are investigated and corrected.

This, he noted, falls in line with the President’s commitment to revive the ailing cocoa sector.