Although the Cocoa Rehabilitation campaign launched by the Gold Coast Government in the 1940s–50s to save the country’s cocoa industry from being destroyed by the “Swollen Shoot” disease was immensely successful, it was nearly stillborn.
It had tremendous drawbacks, caused mainly by a well-known social malady known as—the human factor! Gold Coast society, like the Ghanaian equivalent that succeeded it, was immensely corrupt. As soon as the Government announced that a “repayment grant” would be paid for every cocoa tree that would be cut down to prevent “swollen shoot” from continuing to spread, cocoa farmers who had formerly attacked “CR” teams now befriended them.
Liaison Officers, who were the first point of contact between CR and cocoa farmers, began to establish secret “contact groups” (based on close kinship/family links) through which farmers were able to get their cocoa farms officially “surveyed” and diseased cocoa trees identified and “marked” for cutting out.
Where the diseased cocoa trees were numerous, the trees were counted and payment made on the basis of a “per tree” system. Where the diseased trees were few, however, a corrupt Liaison Officer, upon seeing the preliminary figures, would convey them secretly to the farmer. If the farmer agreed to the advice of the L.O., the technical personnel would be induced to alter the figures, thereby transforming the status of the farm in question to one which was to be paid for on an “acreage” basis instead.
The secret “understanding” was that after the “pay-out” to the beneficiary, he would “share the booty” among all those who had co-operated to make the scam possible. The wholesale destruction of farms was known by the code word “All Die,” and many people in the cocoa-growing areas became wealthy from its proceeds.
Occasionally, an acutely intelligent ASO would smell a rat whilst going over the books of his personnel. Some were therefore sent to jail for cooking the books. But by and large, human nature triumphed over common sense. Later, the CR department amended its policies and used its own employees to carry out the replanting of farms through a system known as “pegging and lining.”
Under this system, cocoa seedlings—usually of the more robust genus known as Amelonado—were planted on “treated” farms, and the farmers were left to maintain and care for them.
It is to be noted that “cocoa rehabilitation” was conceived and financed by the Government of the day, and its modalities created by the Government. But its operation was constantly monitored, and changes were made to the operation where and when necessary.
Because “swollen shoot” occurred at a time when the Ghana independence struggle was at its fiercest, much political capital was made of its weaknesses on both sides. But the colonial authorities—expert propagandists though they were—did not sit on their behinds and try to combat “swollen shoot” with words! Neither did they cover up for officials who were corrupt or inefficient in the struggle against “swollen shoot.”
And that is why today, we still have a cocoa industry to boast of!
By Cameron Duodu
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