Special Adviser to the Cross River State Governor on Cocoa Development, Mr. Oscar Ofuka has revealed the south south state’s plan to produce 500,000 tonnes of cocoa annually.
Ofuka made this known on Tuesday at the inauguration of a 57-man State Cocoa Allocation Committee in Calabar.
According to Ofuka, Governor Ben Ayade has been working round the clock to ensure that the state takes its proper place as the number one cocoa-producing state in Nigeria.
“Right now, we are number two in the country but we intend to raise our output to 500,000 tonnes, particularly now that we have a modern cocoa processing plant at Ikom,” Ofuka said.
He advised the committee at the inauguration to be transparent in plot allocation for cocoa planting and effective management of resources.
“Your part in this policy drive is to ensure that government-owned Cocoa Estates are managed maximally through a transparent and equitable cocoa allocation, ‘’ he said.
He assured the public that members of the committee were carefully selected to cater for all stakeholders in the cocoa sector.
“We are all aware of what happened during the past allocation committee exercise which robbed the state of a huge sum of Internally Generated Revenue. We do not want a repeat of that.
“You will be given all the necessary support to succeed because your success as a committee is the success of the state in the cocoa sector.
“We must do everything possible to complement the efforts of the state governor in moving this sector forward, ‘’ he said.
