Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) has announced cuts to salaries of its executive management and senior staff in line with reforms that saw the farmgate cocoa price slashed by more than 28 percent last week.
The pay cut is explained to be “in recognition of the current liquidity challenges in the cocoa industry.”
Cocobod’s top management team gets a 20 per cent pay cut, while senior staff salaries take a 10 per cent hit.
A press statement issued under the authority of the Chief Executive, Dr Randy Abbey, said the measure will remain in force “for the remainder of the 2025/26 crop year.”
The development comes on the back of a debilitating crisis confronting the world’s second-largest cocoa producer, following a slump in world market prices for the commodity.
The world market for cocoa collapsed from north of $10,000 per tonne in the recent past to prevailing prices below $4,000 per tonne.
The situation has sent shockwaves through producer countries, with Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, which account for 60% of global produce, being the hardest hit.
The price free fall exacerbated a liquidity crisis facing Ghana’s Cocobod, meaning the produce of thousands of cocoa farmers remained unsold, fueling disquiet.
The government intervened last Thursday, 12 February 2026, by reducing the cocoa producer price announced in October to 2,587 Ghana ceedis to 3,625 Ghana cedis.
Finance minister, Dr Ato Forson, attributed the action to the “significant drop in the world market price of cocoa from an average of $7,200 per ton to below $4,100 per ton”, making it unsustainable to maintain the producer price amidst Ghana Cocoa Board’s serious financial crisis.
The country is said to be holding more than 50,000 metric tons of unsold cocoa beans shunned by buyers due largely to its uncompetitive prices.
“The current situation is largely driven by the unwillingness of buyers to purchase Ghana’s cocoa because it has become uncompetitive and very expensive,” explained Cassiel Ato Forson, Minister of Finance, at a press conference in Accra.
A list of long-overdue reforms in Ghana’s cocoa industry was introduced in an emergency reaction to avert a total bust of the sector responsible for the livelihoods of thousands of farmers and millions of other Ghanaians.
“This decision and other cost-cutting measures in procurement and a staff rationalisation exercise are aimed at reducing the overall expenditure of COCOBOD and aligning cost with revenue,” according to the regulator.
- Top Cocobod Executives Take Pay Cut - February 17, 2026
- Ghana Unveils New Cocoa Financing Model in Sweeping Sector Reforms - February 12, 2026
- Ghana Cuts Cocoa Producer Price As World Market Price Tumble - February 12, 2026