President John Dramani Mahama has announced plans to end Ghana’s reliance on foreign borrowing to finance cocoa purchases, marking a major shift in the country’s commodity financing model.
According to him, Ghana would now depend on domestic bonds to fund the purchase of cocoa beans from farmers.
“We are going to stop foreign funding for the purchase of our cocoa. We are going to raise domestic bonds. We have enough resources in Ghana to pay for our cocoa,” the President.
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Speaking ahead of the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, the President explained that under the new policy direction, Ghana would no longer use cocoa beans as collateral to secure external loans.
“We are going to raise domestic bonds, purchase our own cocoa. We don’t need to collateralize the beans,” he said.
He argued that the existing system has limited Ghana’s ability to support local processing, despite having significant installed capacity.
“We have the capacity to process about 400,000 tonnes of cocoa, but because the beans are collateralized, we cannot allocate them to local processors. We have to ship everything outside,” he noted.
Boost for jobs
Mr. Mahama said purchasing cocoa independently would allow the country to channel large volumes into domestic processing, helping to create jobs and add value.
“If we buy the beans ourselves, we can take about 400,000 tonnes and give them to our local processors to add value,” he stated.
According to him, strengthening local processing is key to Ghana’s industrialisation and economic transformation agenda.
The President linked the policy shift to the need to create jobs and empower youth, stressing that young people expect faster economic progress.
“Our young people are not as patient as our generation. They want to see progress and prosperity today,” he said.
He maintained that building strong domestic financing and industrial capacity would secure long-term prosperity for Ghana and Africa.
“Africa’s prosperity is not a threat to anyone. It will consolidate world prosperity and be positive for the entire world,” he added.
Financial distress
The announcement comes at a time when Ghana’s cocoa sector is facing a severe financial crisis, marked by mounting debt, declining production, and the weakening of its traditional funding model.
Industry analysts say the proposed shift to domestic financing represents one of the strongest signals yet of the government’s push toward financial independence and value addition within the cocoa sector.
If successfully implemented, the policy is expected to reduce Ghana’s exposure to external debt while strengthening local industry and employment.