Managing editor of the Insight Newspaper, Kwesi Pratt, is still not enthused that media personality, Dr Randy Abbey, accepted to head the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCBOD).
The veteran journalist earlier when Dr Abbey was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Board by President John Dramani Mahama, expressed his disappointment that his friend and colleague agreed to head the institution.
In the estimation of Pratt, the broadcaster was doing incredibly well at Metro TV and should have continued with his job as a private man.
“And you remember I told you that I actually pity Randy Abbey and that I thought he was doing very well at Metro TV and should have stayed here and avoided carrying this huge problem on his head”, he said.
Dr Abbey who is involved in other endevours including football matters hosted the Good Morning Ghana programme for about 20 years or so until he resigned from the station earlier this year following his elevation.
Pratt says that his problem with the decision, though belated, was not borne out of malice or that Dr Abbey is not fit for purpose.
Rather, he said, he was concerned that COCOBOD has been ran down by the previous management, riddled with gargantuan debts and so accepting the appointment meant that he was walking into a dangerous fire.
He argued that, moving to head COCOBOD was not something that should have been considered as it was going to put a lot of responsibilities on him, expressing empathy to the CEO and where he finds himself at the moment.
The issue of Dr Abbey and COCOBOD came up when Pratt appeared on Good Morning Ghana programme on Wednesday October 29, and the Cedi’s 60-years’ anniversary was being discussed.
While celebrating the feat of the national currency this week, Pratt emphasized the need for Ghana to focus its attention on production as it is the trump card to keep a healthy competition with the US dollar.
He cited the predicament of the cocoa sector in the past years stressing production of the commodity has dwindled hugely due to several factors.
“But what will sustain the value of the Cedi, or our Cedi to appreciate is production. Production production, production, production. That is the only way. If you look at the cocoa sector it is frightening. What is happening in the cocoa sector in the last 5 years is frightening.
One, they say that cocoa is the main stay of the economy. Now if cocoa is the may stay of the economy it means that it has impact on the value of the currency and so on.
Over the last five years cocoa production has gone down by more than 50 percent. Fifty percent drop in the level of cocoa production. That should worry anybody”.
He also expressed concern that even though the price of cocoa has been up on the word market, Ghana, one of the world’s biggest producer of cocoa is unable to enjoy the benefit because the country is engaged in arrangement that does not permit.
“Worse still cocoa price on the world market has shot up but because we are doing forward sales we are not benefitting from this huge increase in the producer price of cocoa. That is a huge problem for the economy.
So the revival of the cocoa sector on the national economy and if we have to abandon it (I am not a stapler) for revival if we have to abandon it what other alternatives are we going to look at and this is a matter for discussion and debate and so on.
But the cocoa sector places huge constraint on the national currency and don’t forget that last year we failed to secure the syndicated loan which we use for cocoa purchases from the farm gates what was the reason for that? It is interesting to examine the reason. But the button line as I have said from the beginning is that if you want to shore your currency you depend less on imports”, he added.
By Gifty Boateng