Ghana’s cocoa regulator Cocobod will lose about $1.3 billion in revenue due to the payment of contracts that were rolled over to the 2024/25 season following a decline in cocoa production, according to former President John Dramani Mahama.
In his State of the Nation address on Thursday, Mahama stressed that Ghana, the world’s second largest cocoa producer, had to delay the delivery of 370,000 metric tons of cocoa from the previous season due to a sharp decline in production. He noted that the increase in global cocoa prices had made Ghana’s 2024/25 crop more expensive, causing Cocobod to incur financial losses when it used the current season’s beans to fulfil old contracts.
Mahama reported that as of February 2025, Cocobod had lost $840 million by supplying 210,000 metric tons under these transferred contracts.
Ghana’s cocoa production peaked at over 1 million tons in 2021 but has since declined rapidly, reaching its lowest level in decades last season. Analysts attribute the decline to factors such as climate change, tree diseases and widespread illegal gold mining that has devastated cocoa growing areas.
Mahama also said that Cocobod had failed to supply 333,767 tons of cocoa, which it sells for $2,600 per ton, and that these contracts had been postponed until the current season.
He also criticized Cocobod for financial mismanagement, claiming that the regulator’s debt had reached 32.5 billion cedis ($2.1 billion), with 9.7 billion cedis due by September 2025. According to Mahama, every tonne of cocoa delivered to fulfill delayed contracts will result in a loss of $4,000 for both the regulator and farmers. Cocobod is also expected to lose another $495 million in completing these contracts, adding to its debt challenges.
Despite these setbacks, Ghana is hoping for better yields in the current season thanks to favorable weather conditions and efforts to rebuild farms affected by disease.