The Deputy CEO of COCOBOD, Dr Emmanuel Opoku, has said companies who transacted cocoa business with other people’s licenses will be sanctioned.

Dr Opoku stated that his outfit will penalise offenders according to the internal guidelines and regulations.

His comments come on the back of a recent JoyNews investigation which exposed how some Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) and farmer society groups illegally rent their certification licenses to businessmen to enable them to export regular cocoa as certified ones. It was discovered that certification licenses could be rented out for as high as a million cedis to businessmen.

Speaking on NewsNite on JoyFM, Dr Emmanuel Opoku explained that the activities of these companies will be halted.

“We are going to stop any cocoa, certified or not so long as the company has been identified in this kind of malpractice. This is because the source or status cannot be identified,” he mentioned.

COCOBOD says it undertook a foundation process to sanitise the Cocoa Sustainability Program.

This enabled COCOBOD to pay farmers an extra premium for growing certified cocoa.

Dr. Opoku also said a committee will be set up to make investigations into the matter.

“I am going to put up a committee to probe into the matter. I cannot fathom why some people will do this to the very farmers they claim they are supporting,” he stated.