Reforming Ghana´s cocoa sector: an evaluation of private
participation in marketing

Abstract: The Ghana Cocoa Board as part of cocoa sector reforms in 1992 started
issuing license to private companies to buy cocoa from farmers at approved
government prices for margins. Unlike other cocoa producing countries in
West Africa, the Ghana Cocoa Board has been maintained to regulate the
industry after liberalization.
The study aims at investigating how private participation in the internal
marketing process has affected the cocoa industry in Ghana. The data used
for this study was collected from sources in some selected cocoa growing
regions in Ghana. The target population consisted of a cross section of
employees of Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) and Quality Control Division
of COCOBOD. Data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires. With
94.7% response rate, the data was analysed using qualitative and
quantitative techniques.
The findings of this study suggest that private participation in the cocoa
industry has somewhat facilitated competition in the industry which has in
turn enabled stakeholders to realize their expectation of high productivity
and increase in income as each improves upon their service quality and
motivates customers, cocoa farmers, to be loyal to them. Industry
competition and opportunities was assessed using Porter�s five forces
which indicated a lack of competition largely due to the regulated nature
of the Ghana cocoa industry. The major challenges facing the LBCs are the
issues of financing their operations and reducing the cycle time in the
supply-chain management.
It was also found that private participation provides the opportunity for
other business creation as well as collaborative competition, collaborative
investment and collaborative infrastructural and managerial development.
One major limitation of this study is that it used a relatively small sample
size and like all other qualitative studies, there is high degree of biases
in responses of participants.
It is highly recommended that further studies should assess the Performance
of new LBC Entrants� in the Cocoa Industry in Ghana.