Government saves $400K interest on COCOBOD loan

The Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahene Aidoo has disclosed that government has saved the state from incurring an interest of $400,000 on a $1.8billion loan facility contracted by the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) government for COCOBOD.

He said through prudent economic measures by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, the $1.8 billion loan has been fully paid. The debt was fully serviced in June 2017.

Mr Aidoo said the loan was due for repayment by August this year, failure for which the state would have had to pay an additional $400,000 interest but the government did its best to find funds to repay the loan in full.

The CEO who revealed this on Monday, August 7, 2017 at a durbar held in Bibiani in the Western region explained That government is implementing measures to revamp the sector.

He noted that COCOCOB has procured a total of 20,000 mist blowers and knapsack sprayers for the cocoa mass spraying exercise. This, he said was in line with government’s promise to boost cocoa production to 1.5 million metric tonnes.

He added that subsidised fertilisers and free agro chemicals have been procured and delivered across all cocoa growing areas across the country.