Ghana’s cocoa regulator, Ghana Cocoa Board secured $200 million in early payments for deliveries from this year’s light crop season.
According to Bloomberg, some two people who are familiar with the matter but wish to remain anonymous made this known. The two want to remain anonymous because they have not been authorised to speak on the matter.
Ghana has two annual cocoa harvest seasons. The light-crop harvest begins in June and is usually reserved for local processors.
It is common practice for the Ghana Cocoa Board to ask buyers to prepay for their contracts for the smaller of the two annual harvests.
However, the cocoa regulator did not make a similar request in 2018.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Cocoa Board is forecasting a harvest of at least 80,000 metric tons.
The request for early payments is coming at a time when the regulator is shoring up its finances and needs GHC1.1 billion ($204 million) to meet commitments for the year through September.
It’s also putting measures in place to borrow $300 million from lenders after recording a shortfall of GHC2 billion in the previous annual harvest.
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