The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has strongly criticised the producer price fixed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government for the 2026/27 cocoa season, describing it as both inadequate and unlawful under legislation passed by the same administration.
In a press statement dated 27 September 2026, the NPP Policy Secretariat said the government announced a price of GH¢2,650 per 64 kg bag on 25 September — an increase of only GH¢63, or 2.4 per cent, on the reduced price that applied at the end of the 2025/26 season.
The party maintains that the figure falls below the statutory minimum required by Section 57 of the Ghana Cocoa Board Act, 2026 (Act 1182).
That provision states that the producer price for a crop season “shall not be less than 70% of the Gross Free-on-Board (FOB) price realized by the Cocoa Board for that crop season.”
According to the NPP, the government claims GH¢2,650 represents 71.18 per cent of the Gross FOB price. For that assertion to hold, COCOBOD’s realised Gross FOB price would need to be approximately US$5,180 per tonne.
The party in a statement signed by Isaac Yaw Opoku (MP) and George Oduro as co-chairs, with Michael Kwasi Boahen Aidoo as spokesperson, of the NPP policy body notes that international cocoa prices over the past three months have ranged between US$5,500 and more than US$6,000 per tonne, and questions whether the Living Income Differential (LID) of US$400 per tonne has been included in the government’s calculation.
Using a conservative lower-bound world price of US$5,500 plus the LID, an exchange rate of GH¢11.50 to the US dollar, and the standard conversion of 16 bags per tonne, the NPP calculates a statutory minimum of GH¢2,968.44 per bag.
This leaves a shortfall of GH¢318.44 per bag — more than GH¢5,000 per tonne — under the announced price.
The statement also revisits the government’s earlier record on cocoa pricing.
“During the 2024 election campaign, senior NDC figures, including the current Ministers for Food and Agriculture, Finance and Health, together with the President, promised farmers GH¢6,000 per bag and argued that the then-prevailing GH¢3,100 was exploitative. In October 2025 the government set the 2025/26 price at GH¢3,625. Four months later, in February 2026, it reduced that figure to GH¢2,587 — a cut of GH¢1,038 mid-season that the NPP says was the first of its kind in the history of Ghana’s cocoa industry,” the party said.
The party describes the February reduction as arbitrary, having been taken by emergency Cabinet decision without consultation with farmers or Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs), and unlawful because the opening-season price had been a guaranteed minimum for the entire crop year.
Beyond the new season’s price, the NPP highlights unpaid arrears. It cites a recent report by the Chamber of Cocoa Marketers that cocoa beans valued at approximately GH¢4 billion, delivered during the 2025/26 season, remain unpaid.
“That season itself stretched to nearly 14 months. The party questions what assurance exists that 2026/27 purchases will be settled promptly, recalling that farmers went unpaid for months in late 2025 and early 2026.
The NPP has therefore called on the government to publish in full the computation behind the GH¢2,650 price, including realised Gross FOB figures, forward-contract details, treatment of the LID and the exchange rate used; review the producer price upward to comply with Section 57 of Act 1182; pay without delay the amounts withheld from farmers as a result of the February 2026 reduction; settle all outstanding arrears owed to farmers and LBCs for the 2025/26 crop year; and present a credible financing plan guaranteeing prompt payment for cocoa purchased in the new season.
“Seventy percent of the Gross FOB price, as the law prescribes, is not GH¢2,650,” the statement concludes.
“Ghana’s cocoa farmers have been misled and shortchanged by a government that promised them far more and has delivered far less. They deserve a fair price for their labour, and they deserve a government that honours both its promises and its own laws.”
Source: Starrfm.com.gh
