NPP Member of Parliament for Old Tafo, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, has publicly taken on Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson over what he describes as a blatant failure to fulfill a key promise made to Ghana’s cocoa farmers.
In a Facebook post, Assafuah called out the Finance Minister for not living up to his own lofty pledge of significantly increasing the producer price of cocoa. To drive his point home, he shared a throwback video in which Dr. Forson, then in opposition, emphatically stated that under an NDC government, cocoa farmers would be paid not less than GHS 6,000 per bag if cocoa traded at GHS 9,700 on the international market.
“Right Honourable Speaker, the cocoa farmer cannot be paid less than 6,000 Ghana cedis per bag… The payment of 6,000 Ghana cedis per bag is critical because cocoa farmers deserve the benefit of their hard labour,” Ato Forson had stated in the archived video.
Fast forward to 2025, and according to Assafuah, the actual price announced by the NDC-led government falls embarrassingly short of that pledge. The new price per 64kg bag of cocoa for the 2025/2026 crop season stands at GHS 3,228.75, up by only GHS 128.75 from the previous price of GHS 3,100.
Visibly unimpressed, Assafuah wrote:
“This is what you promised the people of Ghana. Today, you couldn’t even honour up to 10 percent of that promise, yet you have paid some media houses not to question this failure. Let us remind you, you have only added 128 cedis, which is not up to the 2,900 cedis you promised from this video.”
The NPP MP also questioned the integrity of the communication surrounding the price announcement, accusing the NDC of “governance through optics” and manipulating the media narrative.
Dr. Ato Forson, in announcing the new cocoa price, had emphasized that the GHS 3,228.75 per bag figure represents 70% of the gross Free-On-Board (FOB) value of $7,200 per tonne, aligning with President Mahama’s campaign pledge. He also stated that the new pricing structure is based on global cocoa trends and forward contracts signed at $2,600 per tonne.
