Former President John Dramani Mahama has questioned the rationale behind a recent press statement issued by COCOBOD as a reaction to his flagbearership tour of the Western Region.

Mr Mahama during his meetings with delegates of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in especially cocoa-growing areas in the Western Region highlighted a number of challenges confronting cocoa farmers.

He said among others that the government has not increased producer price of cocoa farmers in the last two years, many cocoa road projects have been abandoned and the government was selling to cocoa farmers fertiliser marked “not for sale”, which the NDC administration was distributing for free to farmers.

These statements provoked a reaction from COCOCOD by way of a press statement.

Interestingly, the said COCOBOD statement did not contradict the issues raised by former President Mahama, except to make excuses for the government’s failure to increase the producer price and its decision to sell fertiliser to cocoa farmers.

Addressing NDC delegates at Kwabeng in the Atiwa West constituency and Anyinam in the Atiwa East constituency during his five-day flagbearership campaign tour of the Eastern Region, Mr Mahama said he was baffled by the posture of COCOBOD, particularly as its own press statement made admissions of all the issues that he raised.