Ghana's Cocobod requires around $400 million in bridge financing from the central bank to cover its operations for the remainder of the cocoa season after a $1.8 billion loan ran out early, the industry regulator's chief executive said on Tuesday.
Each September, the regulator secures an international syndicated loan that enables licensed buyers to purchase cocoa from smallholders for export. But Cocobod's new chairman Hackman Owusu-Agyemang said in March the loan had been used up.
"We are looking for about $400 million now to finish with our operations. We're going to the central bank, the Bank of Ghana, to take out some cocoa bills," Cocobod CEO Joseph Boahen Aidoo told Reuters in an interview in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
"This is a bridge financing arrangement. We should be able to pay it back before the next crop season."
Aidoo said much of the missing loan money had gone to road construction contracts.
"A lot of money was committed to cocoa roads at the expense of other operations, and that is what has brought about the difficulty we are having now," he told Reuters.
"This was because it was the time of elections, and normally the president goes around promising roads."
Authorities in Ghana have launched an investigation into how the loan money was used, and Aidoo declined to say if there had been any wrongdoing.
© Reuters News
"We are looking for about $400 million now to finish with our operations. We're going to the central bank, the Bank of Ghana, to take out some cocoa bills," Cocobod CEO Joseph Boahen Aidoo told Reuters in an interview in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
"This is a bridge financing arrangement. We should be able to pay it back before the next crop season."
Aidoo said much of the missing loan money had gone to road construction contracts.
"A lot of money was committed to cocoa roads at the expense of other operations, and that is what has brought about the difficulty we are having now," he told Reuters.
"This was because it was the time of elections, and normally the president goes around promising roads."
Authorities in Ghana have launched an investigation into how the loan money was used, and Aidoo declined to say if there had been any wrongdoing.
© Reuters News
0 comments:
Post a Comment