President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has announced that his government will soon roll out a programme that will see every school going child from basic to the secondary level enjoy free chocolate every day.
According to him, this will boost the consumption of local cocoa products.
Speaking at this year’s World Cocoa Day celebration in Kumasi which coincided with the 70th anniversary celebration of the establishment of the Ghana Cocoa Board, President Akufo-Addo said government had already received support from some international chocolate companies to kick start the programme.
“It is for this reason that the Ministry of Agriculture through COCOBOD, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection through the school feeding programme, and the Ministry of Education through the Ghana Education Service, are to ensure the sustained provision of cocoa beverages and chocolates to school children from primary school to secondary level,” he said.
The President further explained that “…[our] target is to provide every Ghanaian student with a bar of chocolate or cocoa beverage each day whilst in school.”
This, he said “has been given the needed impetus by some manufacturing companies who have agreed to support the programme”.
The Ghana Cocoa Board had earlier appealed to Ghanaians to patronize locally produced cocoa products instead of foreign ones.
Speaking at a media launch of the 2017 Cocoa Day in Kumasi last week, Senior Public Affairs Director at COCOBOD, Noah Kwasi Amenyah, said his outfit was hoping that cocoa drinks will be served at official functions as a way of encouraging patronage of cocoa made products.
“We expect the school feeding programme to adopt it and ensure the children also take cocoa. We expect the young and the elderly to also consume cocoa because of its enormous health benefits”.