Ghana Just Said It Will Raise $1 Billion in Cedi Bonds for Cocoa. But Farmers Still Have Not Been Paid.

Ghanaian cocoa farmer at depot weighing dried beans on a hanging scale, cocoa-belt shop counter visible in the background — Illustration by HotKiosk

Ghana wants to raise a one billion dollar cocoa bond at home, in cedis, to pay cocoa farmers for the next season. The plan was put on the table on May 7. Two days later, news broke that thousands of cocoa farmers from the last season have still not been paid. For shops in the Ghana cocoa belt, both stories land at the same till.

What COCOBOD just said

Randy Abbey, the chief executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), spoke at the Africa Cocoa Investment Forum in London on May 7, 2026. He said COCOBOD wants to fund the entire 2026/27 cocoa crop using a one billion dollar bond. The bond will be sold inside Ghana, in cedis, to pension funds and big local investors.

This is a big change. For years, COCOBOD borrowed dollars from foreign banks every season. The loan came in, farmers got paid, and Ghana shipped the beans. That system fell apart in 2024. Cocoa prices, debt, and a weak cedi pulled it under.

Abbey said, according to Bloomberg, that interest rates in Ghana are now "at the right place" to borrow at home. The 2026/27 season starts around August. So the bond would need to be issued in the next two to three months.

The bond is a plan, not a done deal. No date is set, no rate is fixed, and no investor has signed on the dotted line yet. But the announcement is the strongest signal yet that Ghana is moving away from foreign cocoa loans.

Why farmers from last season are still unpaid

While COCOBOD talks about the next season, the last one is still bleeding. On May 8, Reuters reported that thousands of smallholder farmers have not been paid for cocoa delivered since November 2025. The unpaid bills sit with the Producer Buying Company, or PBC.

PBC is supposed to be the buyer of last resort. It is the company that, by law, has to buy from any farmer who shows up with beans. According to Reuters, citing a source familiar with the matter, PBC has run out of cash. It owes more than 24 months of staff salaries and statutory payments. It owes 257 million cedis to a group of five banks. Two of those banks are state-owned. In March, the banks got a court order to seize PBC assets.

Ghanaweb has been tracking PBC's debt for months and puts the total figure at around 673 million cedis. Reuters says PBC, which once handled 30% of Ghana's cocoa, now buys less than 5%. The pension fund SSNIT, which is a major shareholder, has not put fresh money in.

What this means in plain English. Many farmers in Ashanti, Western, Eastern, Bono, and Ahafo regions handed over bags of cocoa six months ago. They are still waiting for the money.

What this means for cocoa belt shops

If your shop sits in a cocoa town, you already feel this. Farmers are your customers. They buy cooking oil, soap, school books, gas refills, mobile data, and Sunday clothes. When they have not been paid since November, your sales drop. School fees go on credit. Tabs grow.

The bond plan offers a possible fix for the next season but does almost nothing for the bills owed today. Here is the timeline shop owners need to read carefully.

Timeline	What is happening	What it means at the shop
Now to August 2026	PBC asset case in court. No fresh money for last-season debts unless government steps in.	Farmer cash flow stays tight. Customer credit books get longer. Plan stock around staples, not luxuries.
July to August 2026	COCOBOD targets bond issue before new crop season opens.	If it lands, farmers get paid faster in the new season. Cash flow could recover by September.
October 2026 onwards	New crop deliveries against fresh cedi funding.	Spending in cocoa towns should pick up if the bond holds. Re-stock fast movers.
Risk window	Bond delays, gets undersubscribed, or comes in below $1 billion.	Even slower payouts. Plan a thin December.

The cedi rate matters here too. As of early May the cedi traded near GH¢11.20 to the dollar, according to Bank of Ghana and Bloomberg data. A stronger cedi means farmers earn fewer cedis per dollar of cocoa sold. A weaker cedi pushes up the cost of imported stock on your shelves. Right now both pressures are squeezing the same household at once.

The catch — three things that could go wrong

1. The bond may not get filled

One billion dollars in cedi terms is a huge ask of local pension funds and banks. Ghana's domestic debt market is still healing from the 2023 debt restructuring. If pension fund managers say no, COCOBOD has to fall back on foreign loans again.

2. PBC could collapse before any rescue lands

If the court enforces the asset seizure before government acts, PBC could be wound down. Some farmers would lose their main buyer. Other Licensed Buying Companies could pick up the slack, but with smaller field networks.

3. Farmgate price decisions are still political

Ghana cut the farmgate price for the 2025/26 season earlier this year. If the bond comes in but the farmgate price stays low, farmers may take less to the official buyer and more across the border to Côte d'Ivoire, where prices have been higher. That hurts both COCOBOD revenue and shops in Ghana cocoa towns.

5 things to do this week

Look at your credit book. Add up what farmers owe your shop right now. If it is more than two weeks of takings, stop new credit until things clear. Be polite, be firm.
Re-stock around staples. Maize, oil, sugar, soap, candles, kerosene, basic school items. Skip extras like big TV deals or expensive drinks for the next month or two. Customers do not have it.
Talk to your wholesaler. Ask about price changes for May and June. Ask if you can space orders out and pay in two parts instead of one big drop. Many wholesalers in Kumasi and Sunyani are doing this for cocoa town shops right now.
Watch the bond news. Bookmark cocobod.gh/news and Bank of Ghana. The day a bond date is announced, you have a 4-to-8 week window before farmer cash starts to flow. Stock up on fast movers a few weeks before payments hit.
Diversify your customer base if you can. Push more to non-cocoa customers — teachers, traders, transport workers, civil servants. They are paid monthly. Their cash flow is steadier than a farmer's right now.

Pan-African ripple

Ghana is not alone. Across Africa, government bodies that buy from farmers are testing new ways to fund the buy. Zambia lifted its maize export ban in April to clear surplus stock. Nigeria banned 17 import categories to push spending toward local goods. Ethiopia is racing to substitute imports with locally made goods. The pattern is the same. Governments are stepping back into commodity chains. Sometimes it works. Sometimes payments to farmers and traders dry up while the policy is being figured out.

For Côte d'Ivoire, the world's biggest cocoa producer, Ghana's bond move is worth watching. If the cedi bond works, Côte d'Ivoire's Conseil du Café-Cacao may try the same thing in CFA francs. That would lock both countries into local-currency cocoa funding for the first time in decades.

Why this matters

Cocoa puts food on the table for over 800,000 farming families in Ghana. Each of those families is a customer for at least one shop, one wholesaler, one transport operator, and one school. When the cocoa pay cycle breaks, every business in the cocoa belt feels it within weeks. The May 7 announcement is the start of a possible fix. The May 8 Reuters story is a reminder of how long the pain has already lasted. Reading both together is the only way a shop owner can plan for what the next six months actually look like.

Conclusion

Watch the bond. Watch the courts. Adjust your stock and your credit book to the household that is in front of you, not the one you remember from last year. The fix may be coming, but it has not arrived yet.