Nana Addo to give every student one chocolate daily

sQuashie

October 3, 2017 1:43 PM

Nana Addo has promised that students from basic to secondary level in Ghanaian schools would be given free chocolate bar or cocoa drinks under the school-feeding programme.

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the president of Ghana, has made a promise to residents of Kumasi that the New Patriotic Party government will soon start a programme to offer every school-going child a free bar of chocolate daily.

The president was speaking at the 2017 celebration of World Cocoa Day in when he made the promise.

Nana Addo believes that this programme would boost the consumption of cocoa products locally.

The provision of the free chocolate to all pupils would be reportedly run alongside the school feeding programme.

"It is for this reason that the Ministry of Agriculture through COCOBOD, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection through the school feeding programme, and the Ministry of Education through the Ghana Education Service, are to ensure the sustained provision of cocoa beverages and chocolates to school children from primary school to secondary level," he said.

Local manufacturing companies who are into the production of cocoa products have reportedly agreed to help government with the programme according to Nana Addo's statements.

Nana Addo explained that the target for the NPP government was to "provide every Ghanaian student with a bar of chocolate or cocoa beverage each day whilst in school."

Cocoa is the chief agricultural export of Ghana and the country's main cash crop. Behind Ivory Coast, Ghana is the second largest cocoa exporter in the world.

However, the consumption of cocoa products locally has not been up to the expected level.

The Ghana Cocoa Board had earlier appealed to Ghanaians to patronize locally produced cocoa products instead of foreign ones at a media launch of the 2017 Cocoa Day in Kumasi.

sQuashie