Policy analyst and president of IMANI Africa Franklin Cudjoe has alleged that Old Tafo Member of Parliament Vincent Ekow Assafuah received $30,000 to mount a campaign aimed at forcing Ato Boateng, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer in charge of Finance and Administration at the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), out of his post.
Cudjoe made the allegation in a statement shared on social media on Wednesday, accusing unnamed private companies of attempting to use the parliamentarian to pressure Boateng following the official’s rejection of what Cudjoe described as inflated payment claims submitted to COCOBOD.
“It is disgraceful that a sitting Member of Parliament would allow himself to be used by crooked companies that want to virtually steal from COCOBOD with fictitious and fraudulent claims of over GH¢120 million they claim are owed them by the previous administration when in fact they are owed just about GH¢30 million,” he wrote.
Cudjoe alleged that Boateng identified the inflated claims and refused to authorise payment, and that the rejection triggered a coordinated effort to discredit him, culminating in Assafuah filing a formal petition to the COCOBOD Governing Board in February calling for Boateng to step aside pending investigations into alleged conflicts of interest.
Assafuah’s petition, dated February 25, accused Boateng of a conflict of interest stemming from his prior role as chief executive of Atlas Commodities Limited, a licensed cocoa buying company, and alleged that Atlas had been operating from warehouses registered under the Produce Buying Company, a potential breach of COCOBOD regulations. Boateng has denied any conflict of interest, stating that he resigned as director of Atlas Commodities and transferred his shareholding to a trust before assuming his COCOBOD appointment in February 2025, and that he formally declared his prior interest in the company as required under public officer asset declaration rules.
Cudjoe called on Assafuah to apologise to Boateng and urged the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) to drop charges he said were improperly initiated against the official. He warned that allowing the dispute to escalate could damage COCOBOD’s credibility with international financial partners at a sensitive time for the institution.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, injected more than $100 million into Ghana’s cocoa sector in January 2026 to address a critical funding shortfall, with potential additional support of up to $300 million expected later this year. Cudjoe noted that Boateng previously worked with the IFC between 2007 and 2015, a relationship he said had not been questioned even after the institution stepped in to support COCOBOD.
Assafuah had not publicly responded to the $30,000 allegation at the time of publication.
