Politics of Wednesday, 6 November 2019Source: citinewsroom.comParliament defers approval of $600m loan for cocoa sector after Minority’s concernsThe Parliamentary chamberParliament has deferred the approval of a 600 million dollar loan facility for the Ghana Cocoa Board’s (COCOBOD) cocoa productivity enhancement programme. This was after the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu questioned the utilization of 68 million dollars for hand pollination, 5 million dollars as part of the school feeding programme for the distribution of chocolate and cocoa products and 200 million dollars to promote local processing of cocoa, among others. We want to know where the 200 million dollars will be going to because 200 million dollars can even set up four processing factories if we are to do a minimum of 50 million dollars per factory. We have no difficulty with it but when we say 200 million dollars to support domestic processing of cocoa, the committee must demand who will get this as support. Should the government sit down and let cocoa production decline as they did in their time?

Source: GhanaWeb November 05, 2019 19:18 UTC