ACCRA, Oct 8 – Ghana’s Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has raised 3.39 billion cedis, or about $288 million, through a short-term domestic debt issuance as the regulator seeks to strengthen funding for cocoa purchases during the new season.
The debt, issued on Monday through Cocoa Capital, a special purpose vehicle established to raise financing for the cocoa sector, carries an 11% interest rate and matures in June 2027. The issuance fell short of its 4 billion cedi ($340 million) target.
The funds are expected to enable COCOBOD to begin disbursing financing to licensed cocoa buying companies (LBCs), allowing them to purchase cocoa beans directly from farmers.
Ghana’s new cocoa season opened on September 25, but licensed buyers had warned that they were unwilling to finance purchases from their own resources while waiting several months for reimbursement from COCOBOD.
The latest debt issuance is the first of three planned tranches under COCOBOD’s broader 16.3 billion cedi ($1.38 billion) domestic financing programme. The remaining two tranches are expected to be issued during the current cocoa season.
Shift Toward Domestic Financing
The fundraising marks another step in COCOBOD’s shift toward Ghana’s domestic capital markets after the regulator encountered difficulties securing traditional external financing.
COCOBOD’s long-standing syndicated borrowing arrangement with international banks collapsed during the 2023/24 cocoa season, disrupting a financing model that had supported cocoa procurement for decades.
A subsequent arrangement involving international cocoa traders to pre-finance purchases also broke down, contributing to delays in payments to farmers during the previous season.
The latest issuance provides COCOBOD with additional working capital as Ghana seeks to maintain cocoa procurement at the start of the new season while reducing its reliance on international financing structures.
For licensed buyers, timely access to COCOBOD funding remains important because their ability to purchase cocoa depends heavily on the regulator’s capacity to reimburse procurement costs.
