By Eugene Nyarko Jnr.—
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called on President John Dramani Mahama to withhold assent to the Ghana Cocoa Board Bill, 2026, describing its passage under a Certificate of Urgency as a flawed process that could undermine the interests of cocoa farmers.
The party said although it supported reforms to the cocoa sector, including improved traceability, value addition and a guaranteed minimum share of the cocoa price for farmers, it was concerned about several provisions in the new law and the manner in which the legislation was passed.
Speaking at the NPP Headquarters at Asylum Down in Accra, the NPP Policy Committee Co-Chairman on Agriculture and Member of Parliament for Offinso South, Dr Isaac Yaw Opoku, said the Bill had been rushed through Parliament without adequate consultation with key stakeholders in the cocoa industry.
He said the Bill was laid before Parliament on July 28, 2026, and passed within the same week, despite seeking to repeal the existing PNDCL 81 and introduce wide-ranging changes to the governance, licensing, pricing and regulation of the cocoa sector.
Dr Opoku said the importance of the legislation required extensive consultation because the cocoa sector supported about 800,000 farming families and generated billions of dollars in export earnings annually.
He said cocoa production had declined from a peak of 1.047 million tonnes to about 650,000 tonnes, with a further 16 per cent decline projected for the next season, while about 90,000 hectares of cocoa farms were awaiting rehabilitation due to swollen shoot disease.
Consultation
Dr Opoku questioned the level of stakeholder consultation preceding the passage of the Bill, saying no consultation report was presented to the Joint Committee of Parliament.
He said neither of the two national cocoa farmer associations was consulted, while the Licensed Cocoa Buyers Association of Ghana (LICOBAG) had submitted concerns which, he said, were not incorporated into the final legislation.
He also said the Cocoa Hauliers Association was not consulted.
According to him, the 2026 Bill also differed materially from the 2025 version that had earlier been subjected to parliamentary committee consideration.
“A law made for cocoa farmers, without cocoa farmers, is not reform. It is imposition,” he said.
Pricing
The NPP also raised concerns about Clause 57 of the law, which provides for a producer price of not less than 70 per cent of the Gross Free On Board (FOB) price realised by the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD).
Dr Opoku said the party welcomed the statutory floor but questioned how the “realised Gross FOB” would be calculated and verified.
He said unlike the world market price, which could be observed on international exchanges, the realised Gross FOB was an internal computation based partly on forward contracts and other transactions known primarily to COCOBOD.
He therefore called for the publication and independent auditing of the calculations used to determine the producer price every season.
External marketing
Dr Opoku further expressed concern about Clause 59, which provides for different categories of licences, including external marketing.
He said allowing private operators to undertake external marketing could weaken Ghana’s collective bargaining position on the international cocoa market.
He said the centralised marketing system through the Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC) had helped Ghana to undertake forward sales, maintain quality premiums and negotiate collectively with other major cocoa-producing countries.
He therefore called for an explicit confirmation that external marketing would remain vested in the CMC.
Cocoa farms
The NPP also criticised Clause 81, which prohibits the destruction, uprooting, damaging or felling of cocoa trees except for rehabilitation approved by COCOBOD.
Dr Opoku said while the objective of protecting cocoa farms from illegal mining was commendable, the provision could inadvertently criminalise legitimate farming practices.
He said farmers routinely removed diseased, overcrowded or moribund trees as part of good agricultural practices.
He was particularly concerned that requiring approval before infected trees could be removed could delay efforts to control swollen shoot disease.
He proposed that the law exempt tree removals carried out in accordance with published COCOBOD agronomic guidelines, while requiring approval only where a farmer sought to convert a registered cocoa farm to non-cocoa use.
Farmer registration
The party also objected to Clause 85, which requires cocoa farmers and farms to be registered on the Cocoa Management System before commercial production, purchase or sale can lawfully take place.
Dr Opoku said registration was the responsibility of COCOBOD and that farmers should not be criminalised where the Board had not yet completed the registration process.
He said the provision should not take effect until the Minister responsible for Food and Agriculture certified that farmer and farm registration was substantially complete.
Local processing
On the proposed 50 per cent local processing threshold under Clause 106, Dr Opoku said the NPP supported increased domestic value addition but cautioned that the target must be matched by realistic pricing arrangements.
He said Ghana had an estimated cocoa grinding capacity of about 504,780 tonnes annually, yet actual grindings averaged between 210,000 and 220,000 tonnes.
He said requiring 50 per cent of a projected 650,000-tonne crop to be processed locally would mean processing about 325,000 tonnes, a level significantly above recent domestic grinding volumes.
According to him, the main constraint was not processing capacity but the price of cocoa beans.
He therefore questioned the price at which main crop beans would be supplied to local processors and who would absorb any resulting discount.
Producer price
The NPP also cited the reduction in the cocoa producer price during the 2025/26 season as evidence of the need for stronger guarantees.
Dr Opoku said the season opened in August 2025 with a producer price of GH¢51,660 per tonne, which was later reduced to GH¢41,392 per tonne in February 2026.
He said the reduction, which amounted to about 28.6 per cent, affected farmers who had already incurred production costs based on the earlier price.
He said the experience had weakened farmers’ confidence in government price announcements.
He pledged that a future NPP administration led by Dr Mahamudu Bawumia would not reduce the producer price midway through a cocoa season after it had been announced.
“A price announced to the Ghanaian farmer will be a price honoured to the Ghanaian farmer,” he said.
Call for review
The NPP called on President Mahama to withhold assent to the Bill and return it to Parliament for broader consultation with stakeholders.
It also urged Parliament, should the legislation be reconsidered, to narrow Clause 4(b), require an enactment of Parliament before COCOBOD’s mandate could be expanded, publish and independently audit the realised Gross FOB figures, and confirm that external marketing remained with the CMC.
The party further called for amendments to Clause 81 to protect legitimate farming practices, a delay in the implementation of Clause 85(2) until registration was completed and clarification of the pricing arrangements for cocoa beans supplied to local processors.
Dr Opoku urged farmer associations, LICOBAG, cocoa hauliers and processors to make their positions on the legislation known publicly.
He said the NPP supported reform of the cocoa industry but could not support provisions it believed could criminalise legitimate farming activities, penalise farmers for administrative registration gaps, weaken Ghana’s centralised external marketing system or make the calculation of farmers’ guaranteed share difficult to verify.
“Return the Bill. Consult the farmer. Fix the clauses. Then pass a law the whole industry can stand behind,” he said.
