{"id":116065,"date":"2026-02-19T14:29:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=116065"},"modified":"2026-02-19T14:29:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:29:35","slug":"cocobod-entered-2025-with-gh%c2%a217-8bn-debt-burden-adongo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=116065","title":{"rendered":"COCOBOD entered 2025 with GH\u00a217.8bn debt burden \u2013 Adongo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>1 Minute, 34 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
\n

Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Isaac Adongo, has disclosed that the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) began 2025 burdened with approximately GH\u00a217.8 billion in loans and additional operational liabilities, warning that the institution was facing severe financial distress.<\/p>\n

Addressing a press briefing on the current cocoa sector crisis, the Bolgatanga Central MP said the scale of COCOBOD\u2019s debt exposure had become unsustainable and required urgent intervention.<\/p>\n

\u201cCOCOBOD entered 2025 with roughly GH\u00a217.8 billion in loans plus operational liabilities. So loans alone were about GH\u00a217.8 billion by the beginning of 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you add this to other obligations, you will soon come to realise that at this point, COCOBOD was bleeding with an exposure of about GH\u00a260 billion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Adongo argued that the situation made continued borrowing imprudent, stressing that the cocoa sector could not remain viable under such heavy debt.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly, that vehicle could not be sustainable and needed to be addressed,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

To illustrate his point, the MP used a metaphor, questioning the logic of accumulating more debt without fixing underlying inefficiencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a basket in which you put water to drink and the bucket is leaking, do you fix the leak before you put water inside, or do you continue to put the water inside hoping that some will be left for you to drink?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

Adongo criticised those he said were advising government to take on additional borrowing despite the existing liabilities, describing such arguments as \u201cillogical\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have GH\u00a260 billion of somebody\u2019s money. It\u2019s not free money. You are not paying, and you are saying that we should continue even to go and borrow more,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He maintained that the cocoa sector requires a reset, insisting that government must confront the financial realities rather than deepen COCOBOD\u2019s debt burden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n \n
\n \n \"Happy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Happy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sad\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sad <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Excited\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Excited <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sleepy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sleepy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Angry\"\n <\/a>\n
Angry<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Surprise\"\n <\/a>\n
Surprise<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chairman of the Finance Committee of Parliament, Isaac Adongo, has disclosed that the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) began 2025 burdened with approximately GH\u00a217.8 billion in loans and additional operational liabilities, warning that the institution was facing severe financial distress.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1221,1433,13419,1883,117,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cocobod","category-isaac-adongo","category-loans","category-national","category-news","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=116065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=116065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=116065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=116065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}