The Minister for Roads and Highways, Governs Kwame Agbodza, has described Ghana’s cocoa roads programme under the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government as badly handled and the actual bane of the current crisis.
He blamed what he said was years of mismanagement for the financial and operational challenges facing the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) and the cocoa sector presently.
Responding to Parliamentary questions on Wednesday, Mr. Agbodza stressed that the poor management of the programme had contributed significantly to the current difficulties confronting COCOBOD.
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“The entire cocoa roads programme has been so badly handled that I consider it as one of the main causes of the problems COCOBOD is facing right now,” he added.
Mr. Agbodza revealed that between 2023 and 2024 alone, contracts worth about GH¢23 billion were awarded under the cocoa roads programme.
“From 2017, and especially in 2023 and 2024, about GH¢23 billion worth of cocoa road projects were awarded. That is more than what the industry can generate in a year,” he stated.
According to him, the scale of spending showed that COCOBOD had lost focus on its core mandate and instead of concentrating on cocoa production, it was focusing on procurement.
The Minister disclosed that President John Dramani Mahama has since directed that COCOBOD should stop engaging in cocoa road construction and return to its primary responsibilities.
“That is why the President directed that no more COCOBOD involvement in cocoa roads, but rather focus on production and marketing so that farmers can get the The Minister revealed that most cocooned cocoa road projects initiated between 2014–2015 and from 2019 onwards were never completed.
He explained that funding shortages and the suspension of the programme in 2017 led to widespread abandonment.
“The bulk of the cocoa cocoa road projects were never completed because many were at different stages when the policy decision was taken to suspend the programme,” he said.
Many contractors, he added, left sites unattended, causing severe deterioration of unfinished roads. Mr. Agbodza attributed much of the failure to delayed payments and mounting arrears.
To address the situation, government has decided to transfer responsibility for all ongoing cocoa road projects back to the Ministry of Roads and Highways and its agencies.
Discussions, he said, are ongoing to complete the transition, while a full review of the programme has been ordered.
He also confirmed that some of the abandoned cocoa roads are being revived under the government’s “Big Push” infrastructure agenda.