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The hand that holds the machete is bleeding, while the hand that holds the pen merely signs away a surplus.

In the verdant forest belts of Sefwi, Asunafo, and Amenfi, the air is thick, not with the sweet, fermented scent of drying beans, but with the bitter musk of institutional betrayal.

For the first time in our republic’s living memory, the state has done the unthinkable: it has reached into the farmer’s weathered pocket mid-season and snatched back GHS 1,038 from every single bag of cocoa delivered.

A 28.6% slash in the producer price, dropping from GHS 3,625 to GHS 2,587 per bag, is not a mere “market alignment”; it is a declaration of economic war against the very soul of the Ghanaian countryside.

Now, in a move calibrated for the cameras and the evening news, the Executive Management of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has announced a 20% pay cut for themselves. They call it solidarity. They call it “shared sacrifice.”

I call it an institutional insult wrapped in a PR shroud.

Let us speak with the bluntness that this crisis demands. When a CEO earning a mid-five-figure salary loses 20%, he sacrifices a luxury, perhaps a vintage scotch, a foreign holiday, or a premium investment. He remains insulated by the thick walls of corporate privilege.

But when a farmer loses 28% of his gross revenue, he sacrifices a life. He sacrifices the ability to buy sulphate for his trees, the fees for his daughter’s nursing school, and the basic dignity of a harvest that rewards his sweat.

The juxtaposition is jarring.

COCOBOD is currently drowning in a GHS 33 billion debt, a fiscal Titanic hitting the iceberg of global price volatility. For years, the institution operated as a “state within a state,” funding “Cocoa Roads” that often led to political convenience rather than economic efficiency.

By 2024, COCOBOD’s exposure to these road contracts reached a staggering GHS 26 billion, while administrative expenses alone surged by 37% in a single year. To offer a 20% salary reduction now, after the coffers have been emptied on non-core luxuries, is like offering a teaspoon of water to quench a forest fire.

The proposed Cocoa Board Bill is the final nail in the coffin of the post-independence social contract. For decades, the Ghanaian state was the farmer’s shield.

We socialised the risk of the London and New York markets. If the world price crashed, the state bled so the farmer could breathe. This was the “Grand Bargain” that kept our rural heartlands stable.

No more.

By introducing the Automatic Price Adjustment Mechanism, the state is effectively resigning as the farmer’s protector. We are tethering the fate of the rural poor to a digital stock ticker in Manhattan.

Under the guise of “transparency,” we are telling the man in the sun-scorched field: “You are on your own.”

The legal guarantee of 70% of the Net Free on Board (FOB) price sounds noble in a boardroom, but when the global price tumbles from $7,200 to $4,100 per tonne, that 70% becomes a guarantee of destitution, not prosperity.

Furthermore, the Bill’s mandate for 50% domestic processing by the 2026/2027 season is a lofty ambition built on hollow ground. Where are the factories? Where is the reliable, affordable power for indigenous grinders?

Despite a World Bank warning that COCOBOD’s operations pose a “significant fiscal threat,” we continue to chase headlines rather than build infrastructure.

Without the credit for local entrepreneurs to compete with global giants, we risk creating a legal bottleneck that will see our “brown gold” rot in warehouses while we wait for a processing capacity that exists only in parliamentary memos.

If COCOBOD truly wishes to show solidarity, it must do more than trim its fringes. We need a fundamental, forensic audit of the GHS 21 billion in road contracts awarded despite an annual budget of only GHS 430 million.

We need a dismantling of the opaque procurement cultures, exemplified by the $48 million order of jute sacks while 150,000 bales sat rotting at the port, that have bled the board dry long before the global prices dipped.

The farmer does not want your 20% pay cut; the farmer wants the stolen value of his sweat returned.

We cannot continue to celebrate the “shared pain” of the elite when that pain is merely a cosmetic bruise, while the farmer’s pain is a compound fracture.

The state must choose: will it remain the custodian of the cocoa heritage, or will it become merely a ruthless tax collector for a global market that cares nothing for Ghanaian soil?

The cocoa tree is the pillar of our Republic. It has survived droughts, swollen shoot disease, and bushfires. But it may not survive a state that prioritizes the comfort of the air-conditioned office over the survival of the mud-walled cottage.

If we allow the roots to rot through neglect and structural unfairness, the entire house, COCOBOD, the Cedi, and the Republic, will eventually come crashing down.
[16:34, 17/02/2026] Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie3: The NDC Doesn’t Need a Southerner or Northerner

Raymond Ablorh

There is a whisper campaign, a regional propaganda, suggesting that after the tenure of John Dramani Mahama, the “Northern turn” is over and the mantle must migrate elsewhere.

This is political fiction. It is a narrative born of convenience rather than conviction, an attempt to reduce the presidency to a game of musical chairs.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) is a congress, not a carousel. The party does not rotate leadership like a village festival; if it did, the Greater Accra Region, the very heartbeat of the Republic, would have demanded its “turn” decades ago.

To suggest that the highest office in the land is a baton to be passed between geographical coordinates is to insult the intelligence of the Ghanaian voter and to undermine the foundations of meritocracy.

History remains a stern teacher, and the NDC’s history is written in the ink of excellence rather than the pencil of tribal arithmetic.

Jerry John Rawlings did not choose John Evans Atta Mills to satisfy the Central Region; he chose him because he was a “good man on a bad ticket,” a candidate so virtuous that opponents had to invent flaws. The “Asomdweehene” was not a product of coastal zoning; he was a product of moral character and intellectual gravitas.

Similarly, the party maintained Mahama not for his geography, but for his voter-pulling energy. The geography of a leader’s birth is irrelevant if they cannot bridge the geography of the voter’s heart.

A leader whose only credential is their birthplace is a leader who begins their journey at a dead end. One must ask: does a candidate carry the weight of the party’s ideals, or merely the dust of their home district?

The challenge of 2028 demands a candidate who can defend the party’s record with surgical precision. The NDC is blessed with a harvest of talent, yet the criteria for leadership must remain cold and objective.

The party cannot afford the luxury of sentimentalism. The ballot box does not recognize “turns”; it only recognizes strength, clarity, and the promise of a better tomorrow.

The moment requires a leader who possesses the credibility to stand under the glare of scrutiny without wilting. It demands the marketability to reach the undecided middle, the silent majority who vote for bread, not banners, and the intellectual depth to outmanoeuvre an opposition that thrives on obfuscation. A party that prioritizes a compass over a conscience is a party destined to lose its way.

The attempt to bifurcate the NDC into “Northern” and “Southern” interests is a trap set by those who fear a united front. It is a zero-sum game where the only winner is the adversary.

When a movement allows itself to be defined by borders, it forgets its mission. The NDC was founded as a national vehicle, a broad tent that shelters the farmer in Gambaga and the fisherman in James Town with equal fervor.

To retreat into regionalism is to shrink the party’s vision. If leadership is demanded based on ancestral roots, the party risks transforming a national movement into a collection of ethnic silos.

The presidency of Ghana is not a local government appointment; it is a sovereign mandate. The nation does not look for a tribal champion; it looks for a national servant.

The NDC does not need a “Southerner” or a “Northerner” for 2028; it needs a winner. It needs someone who can look the opposition in the eye and command the room. The party requires a leader who understands that the hunger in a belly in Kumasi feels exactly the same as the hunger in a belly in Tamale.

The party stands at a crossroads where the choice is between the comfort of tradition and the necessity of victory. No one should be blinded by the maps of yesterday. The voter of 2028 will not be looking at the candidate’s hometown; they will be looking at the candidate’s hands to see if they are capable of holding the steering wheel of a nation in crisis.

The mantle of leadership is not a gift to be inherited; it is a prize to be earned. While the whisperers continue their regional gossip, the NDC must remain focused on the only metric that matters: the capacity to lead, the courage to fight, and the character to win.

In the final analysis, the party’s survival depends not on where its leader comes from, but on where they intend to take the country.