The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Shippers Authority has fired a sharp broadside at the New Patriotic Party, telling the opposition to abandon its campaign against the cocoa price reduction and confront its own record of mismanaging the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD).
Prof. Ransford Gyampo made the remarks through a social media post on Wednesday, reacting to the NPP’s intensifying attacks on the government’s decision to cut the cocoa producer price from GH¢3,625 to GH¢2,587 per 64-kilogram bag.
“But how can they mess up COCOBOD, run down our economy with impunity, and still have the guts to criticize efforts at cleaning their mess? Just because they are yet to be held accountable? Just because they think Ghanaians don’t know?” he wrote.
Gyampo’s remarks are among the most pointed government-aligned responses to the opposition’s parliamentary offensive. Minority lawmakers have described the price reduction as a betrayal of nearly one million cocoa farming households and demanded Cabinet convene an emergency session to restore the previous price. NPP MPs have also drawn attention to Côte d’Ivoire’s decision to maintain higher prices for its farmers despite the same global market pressures.
Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson has defended the reduction as a necessary response to a sharp fall in global cocoa prices and liquidity pressures within the sector, saying the measure was aimed at stabilising COCOBOD and ensuring timely payments to farmers.
The NPP’s former Finance Minister, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam, has countered that the Mahama administration failed to implement a COCOBOD turnaround strategy developed under the previous government in partnership with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), arguing that this failure is the true root of the current crisis.
Gyampo did not directly respond to those specific allegations in his post. His intervention, however, signals that the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) intends to fight the political battle over cocoa on the terrain of institutional blame, rather than concede ground on the price decision itself. With farming communities expressing deep frustration and Parliament still in session, that battle has many rounds left to run.
