COCOBOD ASKED TO PAY MORE ATTENTION TO SHEANUT (BACK PAGE)

The Upper West branch of the Sheanut Dealers Association has appealed to the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) to make the sheanut industry viable for the country to earn more foreign exchange from it.
The association’s call stems from the fact that Cocobod has failed to give sheanut the needed attention and support.
The Regional Secretary of the association, Mr Moses Yuoni, made the appeal at a press conference in Wa in the Upper West Region.
He observed that as a result of the little attention being given to sheanut production, Cocobod did not even know the real stakeholders operating in the three northern regions.
He alleged that any time the board had to have a meeting or stakeholders workshop on sheanut, it handpicked participants most of whom were not in sheanut production.
"The result of this total neglect of sheanut production in the three northern regions by Cocobod is that during the sheanut season, it is a free-for-all event."
According to Mr Youni, anytime the price of sheanut began to rise, companies left the market because they had alternative sources of sheanut in other African countries.
He said most of the companies did not know when exactly sheanut was ready for sale so they came in when the nuts were hardly matured on the trees.
He was of the belief that if the sheanut business was properly organised it could go a long way to alleviate poverty in northern Ghana.
Touching on a recent advertisers announcement published in the July 11, 2008, edition of the Daily Graphic, Mr Yuoni denied that the association did not challenge the publication.
The publication accused the association, among other things, of organising an illegal workshop on the sheanut industry at which various sums of money were collected from Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs).
Mr Yuoni debunked the publication and said it was a deliberate attempt to mislead Ghanaians.
He admitted, however, that the association organised a workshop in Wa to sensitise its members to the right methods of producing sheanut to meet international standards for export.