The Managing Director of the Cocoa Marketing Company Ghana Limited (CMC), Dr. Wisdom Kofi Dogbey, has paid a working visit to the West African Mills Company (WAMCO) in Takoradi, moving the government’s 50 percent local cocoa processing mandate from declared policy to operational assessment as the 2025/2026 crop season enters its final months.
The visit, reported today, represents the first publicly confirmed direct engagement between CMC’s leadership and one of the two state-linked processors identified as primary execution partners under Project Elevate, Dr. Dogbey’s flagship value-chain initiative. Under that initiative, cocoa beans are to be allocated to selected domestic processors for conversion into semi-finished products such as cocoa liquor and cocoa butter, which generate higher value per tonne compared to raw bean exports and offer stronger long-term revenue potential for the country.
Both WAMCO and the Cocoa Processing Company (CPC), the other primary partner, carry government equity stakes and are currently operating below their installed processing capacity, meaning that volume increases can begin without significant new capital investment. The CMC has consistently argued that this underutilisation makes the 50 percent target achievable in the near term, provided that bean supply allocations and working capital conditions are addressed simultaneously.
The timing of the WAMCO engagement carries added urgency. Cabinet has mandated that from the 2026/2027 crop season, a minimum of 50 percent of all cocoa beans must be processed locally, a directive that emerged alongside a forensic and criminal probe into Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) operations covering the past eight years and a decision to convert GH¢5.8 billion in legacy COCOBOD debt to equity. That timeline gives Dr. Dogbey and WAMCO’s management approximately one crop season to prepare the operational framework before the mandate becomes binding.
As NewsGhana reported in February, the success of the 50 percent mandate will ultimately depend on three conditions arriving simultaneously: stable bean supply to processors, access to affordable working capital given Ghana’s still-elevated lending rates, and a recovery in global grinding demand that gives processors somewhere to sell finished cocoa products competitively. Today’s site visit suggests CMC is working to verify at least the first of those conditions physical and operational readiness at the processing end before the new crop year begins.
WAMCO operates a cocoa liquor plant, an expeller plant, and a hydraulic press plant at its Takoradi facility and holds free zone status, giving it favourable conditions for exporting processed cocoa products. The company’s majority shareholder is Hosta International AG of Switzerland, with the Government of Ghana holding a minority equity stake.
