Ghana’s cocoa industry could have been used to reduce borrowing

Founder of Progeny Ventures Inc, Dr Kofi Amoah

Cocoa industry would have helped public financing

Dr.Amoah commends Ghana for taking advantage of cocoa

Ghana became largest cocoa producer

Founder of Progeny Ventures Inc, Dr Kofi Amoah, believes Ghana could have leveraged on gains made in the cocoa sector to finance its operations and expenditure.

According to him, steps taken to derive the most out of the cocoa sector could have been replicated by other sectors of the economy.

Speaking on the Lowdown on Ghanaweb TV, Dr. Amoah said, if you look at the Ghana cocoa industry it is a clear example of something that we could have used to underride our industrialization financing.”

He commended Ghana for adapting the cocoa crop and making the most out of it even though it was new to the country.

“Because when Tetteh Quarshie brought this crop here we hadn’t seen it before and for me, I get excited when a society hasn’t seen something before but they can see the benefits of that something and create the system, the processes the policies the support help, the financing schemes, the extension officers to support farmers who were really not educated but were guided by their own native intelligence. And Ghana became the largest producers of this crop at one time.”

He further stated that the means by which cocoa was produced and developed, other crops that are indigenous to Ghana could have been exploited in the same way to save the country from excessive borrowing.

According to the Finance minister, Ghana’s public debt stock hit GHS341.8million as of September 2021. This according to Dr. Amoah could have been reduced if Ghana made strides in its local production.

“That’s something that we could have applauded ourselves for, and emulate ourselves. We could have done that with maize, we could have done that with oil palm so many things we could have done that with, and escalate ourselves from not going to somewhere without having to borrow so much money but financing our forward movement by the output of our own production.”