The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Hackman Owusu- Agyemang, says his happiest moment as the overseer of Ghana’s cocoa sector is to witness a strong political commitment aimed at ensuring full implementation of a farmers’ welfare scheme which provides a decent pension for cocoa farmers in Ghana.
The COCOBOD chairman disclosed this at the launch of the Cocoa Farmers Pension Scheme held in Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Region.
Recounting the happy moment, Mr Owusu-Agyemang said, 36 years after the promulgation of the Ghana Cocoa Board Law 1984 (P.N.D.C L 81), successive governments have reneged on their promise to institute a pension scheme to promote the welfare of farmers.
‘It has taken a committed president like Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to muster the courage to institute a Cocoa Farmers Pension Scheme’, he said.
Mr Owusu-Agyemang further indicated that the leadership of President Akufo-Addo, over the past 4 years, has injected impetus into the cocoa sector with the focus on enhancing productivity, improving farmer income and guaranteeing a secure future for cocoa farmers.
He was grateful to His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, Hon Joseph Boahen Aidoo, Management of COCOBOD and stakeholders within the cocoa fraternity for rallying behind him in rolling out various initiatives aimed at sustaining the cocoa sector.
He encouraged cocoa farmers to endeavour to register under the Cocoa Management System (CMS) since it is a prerequisite for signing on to the pension scheme.
He was confident cocoa farmers will see more enhanced livelihoods than before and urged them to adopt the numerous productivity enhancement programmes to enable them to enjoy the full benefit of the recent unparalleled increase in the cocoa producer price from Ghc515 to as high as Ghc660.
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