Business News of Friday, 7 February 2020Source: Graphic.com.ghCOCOBOD directs LBCs to use electronic weighing scalesThe rationale is to help clear suspicions that cocoa purchasing companies to cheat cocoa farmersThe Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has directed all licensed buying companies (LBCs) to use electronic scales to weigh the cocoa beans they buy from cocoa farmers across the country, beginning October this year. The rationale is to help clear suspicions that cocoa purchasing companies, particularly purchasing clerks, adjust their weighing scales to cheat cocoa farmers at the point of weighing the dried cocoa beans. The system, he explained, would register all cocoa farmers into a database to make sure that only cocoa farmers traded out cocoa beans. For his part, the Chairman of the Cocoa Abrabopa Association, Mr Ismaila Pomasi, who spoke on behalf of cocoa farmers, said the government must ensure that all LBCs used electronic weighing scales as they had suspicion that many of them had adjusted their weighing scales, hence making the farmers lose out. “We farmers are not comfortable with how cocoa is weighed,” he said, pointing out that it should be made it mandatory for all LBCs to use electronic weighing scales.

Source: GhanaWeb February 07, 2020 07:52 UTC