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Don’t move COCOBOD to Agric Ministry - GAWU

The General Secretary of General Agriculture Workers Union, Edward Kareweh insist even though COCOBOD is performing poorly, it needs to be restructured instead of moving it from the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Agriculture.

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After the president-elect Nana Akuffo-Addo mentioned that the outgoing Member of Parliament for the Kwadaso constituency, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto will be the Agriculture Minister; reports suggested that COCOBOD will be moved from the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Agriculture.

However the General Secretary of GAWU, Edward Kareweh insist even though COCOBOD is performing poorly, it needs to be restructured.

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“On the dispensation that we find ourselves cocoa production has been declining all these years and that is not a good story. We have been hearing of farmers complaining here and there. We need to address that. The need to restructure is much more important than just putting it under the Ministry of Agriculture,” he argued.

Kareweh in an interview with Accra-based Citi FM, said the Agric Ministry has its own challenges and may not be able to help COCOBOD restructure its systems.

“The Ministry of Agriculture has its own challenges and I am not sure that it has been able to address all those challenges well, so why do we think that when COCOBOD is put under the Ministry of Agriculture farmers would benefit from that and when we talk of farmers which type of farmers?” he asked.

“For cocoa farmers to have the full benefit of their labour and their investment it does not matter whether the COCOBOD is under the Ministry of Agriculture or not, but we should also be careful that the bureaucracy and the type of attitude that bedevils the civil service is likely to affect COCOBOD if we take it to the Ministry of Agriculture,” he added.

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He argued that COCOBOD has delivered in the past “but it appears that its current officials are not good enough to deliver.”

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