Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, a former minister of food and agriculture, has criticized former President John Dramani Mahama for neglecting to take action to address the country's cocoa swollen shoot virus epidemic during his administration.

Many hectares of farmland were harmed by the disease, and the former president, according to Dr. Afriyie Akoto, should have proposed some solutions to stop its recurrence.

Parts of the country were severely hit by the swollen shoot virus disease during the erstwhile Mahama administration. Western and Eastern regions were the most affected.

Cases of the disease were recorded in Ghana between 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2017 and 2021, where millions of trees were affected.

But laying the blame on Mr. Mahama, on the Point of View with Bernard Avle, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto said, “cocoa production has almost stagnated and for a good reason. The swollen shoot virus disease set in about 11 years ago. The NDC-Mahama administration should have taken measures immediately when the incident started to stop spreading. But it was only when we came that through the African Development Bank, we managed to get a loan for rehabilitation to control the virus in the cocoa industry. The project started in 2020, it’s in 3rd year of implementation”.

He stressed, “the Ivorians took measures when it should have been taken, unlike Ghana where it festered to the extent that Western North production came down. We have taken some measures to correct something which should have been done 10 years back”.

The cocoa swollen shoot virus disease (CSSVD) is one of the most devastating diseases on cacao and causes significant production losses and death of cacao trees. The CSSVD is caused by a badnavirus within the family Caulimoviridae.