The Ghana Cocoa Board's (COCOBOD) Charles Amenyaglo, Director of Special Services, has warned cocoa farmers to stop smuggling and peddling subsidized fertilizers for cocoa.Any farmer or purchaser of such subsided cocoa fertilizers, he claimed, would be detained and charged.After four suspected cocoa fertilizer smugglers were brought before Takoradi Port Circuit Court B for allegedly smuggling 328 bags of subsidised cocoa fertilizers, Mr.

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Amenyaglo issued the warning in an interview with the media in Takoradi.He said Cocoa fertilizer smuggling was becoming a torn in the flesh of COCOBOD, stressing that more than 2,000 bags of cocoa fertilizers were retrieved from smugglers across the country last year alone.

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Mr Amenyaglo pointed out that if the practice was not nipped in the bud COCOBOD would not be able to achieve its aim of increased cocoa yield since nutrients on many cocoa farms were depleted.He said it was an offence punishable by law to be engaged in such a practice, noting that the fertilizers were highly subsidised.

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He said they procured the fertilizers at 560 cedis a bag and sold to the farmers at 80 cedis a bag, which they transport to the farming communities and hand over to the farmer cooperatives for distribution to their members.

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Mr Amenyaglo expressed worry that some unscrupulous people had been unlawfully purchasing cocoa fertilizers delivered to cocoa farmers at a highly subsidized rates, adding “some of them have made it their business to be going around buying cocoa fertilizers, which have been delivered to the farmers at their doorsteps.

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The four suspects, Amadu Combat, 55, Kingsley Baah Wiredu, 32, a driver, Issaka Mbawuni, 38, and Dawuda Yakubu, 44, were detained with trucks loaded with COCOBOD-subsidized fertilizers at Samenaboi in the Western Region at around 02:00 on Sunday, September 11.The four were accused of causing the State financial loss, but the charge against them did not match the facts, according to the court presided over by Her Honour, Mrs. Abigail K.

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Asare, who refused to accept their plea and released the suspects.She thus requested that the prosecution work with COCOBOD personnel to carry out in-depth investigations into the case and formulate the proper charges against the four accused.

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