The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr. Randy Abbey, has disclosed that the institution was in an extremely fragile financial position when he assumed office, describing it as the weakest state in almost eight decades.
Speaking in an interview on The Point of View on Channel One TV on Monday, February 9, 2026, Dr. Abbey revealed that COCOBOD’s total outstanding obligations stood at GH¢32.9 billion as of the end of 2024. He noted that the Board had also recorded a negative net asset position of approximately GH¢3.8 billion, meaning its liabilities had exceeded its assets.
According to Dr. Abbey, this marked the first time in COCOBOD’s history that it had fallen into negative equity. He contrasted the situation with 2016, when the institution maintained a positive equity balance of about GH¢1.8 billion.
“At the end of 2024, when I took over, COCOBOD was carrying a debt stock of GH¢32.9 billion and had slipped into a negative equity position of roughly GH¢3.8 billion. In 2016, by comparison, the Board recorded a positive equity position of around GH¢1.8 billion,” he stated.
He stressed that the development was unprecedented in the organisation’s 79-year history, noting that COCOBOD would be marking its 80th anniversary next year.
“By the close of 2024, COCOBOD’s liabilities exceeded its assets by nearly GH¢4 billion. This has never happened before in the history of the institution. That is the situation we inherited,” Dr. Abbey added.
The COCOBOD CEO identified cocoa road construction contracts as one of the major contributors to the Board’s financial distress. He disclosed that the total value of outstanding cocoa road contract commitments was estimated at about GH¢26 billion.
However, he clarified that only GH¢4.4 billion of this amount had been formally recognised as debt, as it represents certified works that had matured into payable obligations.
“We inherited cocoa road contract commitments of approximately GH¢26 billion. Out of this, only GH¢4.4 billion has crystallised into debt because those were certificates that had been issued and submitted to our finance office,” he explained.
Dr. Abbey also pointed to inefficiencies in COCOBOD’s procurement processes, particularly in the acquisition of jute sacks used for cocoa packaging. He said the Board continued to purchase new jute sacks annually despite having substantial stock from previous years, leading to avoidable expenditure estimated at about $48 million.
According to him, the combination of accumulated liabilities, unrecognised contractual commitments and procurement weaknesses largely accounts for the GH¢32.9 billion debt burden inherited by the current administration.
Dr. Abbey emphasised that restoring COCOBOD’s financial health would require significant restructuring efforts to stabilise the institution and rebuild confidence in Ghana’s cocoa sector regulator.
