Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo has called for an investigation into long-standing accusations that cocoa and coffee boards have embezzled funds meant to aid the producers of the country’s lucrative crops, a spokesperson said.
Gbagbo has told government lawyers to look into allegations that the boards — which set prices for crops, oversee exports and provide development assistance — have used export profits for their own gain rather than for projects to benefit farmers as required by law, according to a statement read by government spokesperson Gervais Coulibaly on national television late on Friday.
Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer and a major coffee supplier, has managed to continue a healthy export business despite being split in two when an attempted coup in 2002 sparked civil war and during the past three years of languishing peace deals — each promising to bring elections and restore democratic rule. Under the latest deal, elections are planned for late 2008.
International analysts have long said that the cocoa sector was rife with corruption, and London-based activist group Global Witness issued a report in June charging that more than $118-million in cocoa funds were used to fund both the government’s and the rebels’ war efforts.
Hundreds of Ivorian cocoa growers have demonstrated for weeks, demanding to see more of the export profits, and local newspapers alleged that money supposedly sent abroad to build factories has disappeared.
”They don’t give account of their management. They are rich. They can look after their children and send them to school in Europe. During the same time, producers have gotten poorer and can’t pay to send their kids to school,” said Bile Bile, head of a group of discontented cocoa producers.
Cocoa and coffee farmers are paid a set price for their crop that is below market rate, with the requirement that the boards funnel most of the profit made on exports into projects to improve farming operations.
”In the event of any proven infractions, we ask you to take the necessary steps to begin the useful pursuit of the matter, in conformance with the law,” Gbagbo said in his statement to the lawyers.
In September, the World Bank called for Côte d’Ivoire’s government to reform the sectors to increase the wages of the people who work in the plantations. — Sapa-AP