Every seasoned journalist trained in the strict traditions of public interest reporting knows that numbers can sing whichever tune their author composes. But when state institutions begin to celebrate massive financial turnarounds using unverified, draft figures, the public deserves a sharp pause for thought.
In recent days, the official airwaves have been filled with loud commentary surrounding the 2025 State Ownership Report published by the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA). The flagship narrative being pushed to the public is a grand story of financial resurrection: the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), we are told, has recorded a dramatic net profit of GH¢5.11 billion for FY2025, bouncing back from a GH¢5.73 billion loss the previous year.
Government spokespersons have held up this single figure as absolute proof of operational genius under the current administration.
Yet, open Table 0.2 on page xvi of that exact same 2025 State Ownership Report, and the whole house of cards begins to wobble.
SIGA 2025 REPORTING COMPLIANCE AUDIT: GHANA COCOA BOARD
Metric / Requirement Official Status Recorded by SIGA
Audited Financial Statements Submitted? NO (Submitted “Draft” Only)
Signed FY2025 Performance Contract? NO
Quarterly Reports Submitted? NO
Holding of AGM / ASM Conducted? NO
Employment Data Submitted? YES
Under the compliance breakdown for commercial State-Owned Enterprises, COCOBOD fails on almost every major metric of basic corporate governance.
The entity did not produce Audited Financial Statements for FY2025; it submitted unverified “Draft” accounts. It failed to sign a Performance Contract for FY2025. It failed to submit required Quarterly Reports to the state authority. It failed to hold an Annual General Meeting or Annual Stakeholder Meeting. The single box COCOBOD managed to check was the submission of raw employment data.
This raises a simple, fundamental question for every Ghanaian taxpayer: how does a state regulator validate a GH¢5.11 billion profit recovery for a strategic national institution when that institution failed to provide audited accounts, performance contracts, or quarterly progress reports?
When the New Patriotic Party managed the economy, institutional transparency was treated as a cornerstone of statecraft. Reforms under the Public Financial Management Act and the strengthening of SIGA were engineered precisely so that public funds would be subjected to strict, independent external audit before any victories were declared. Sound governance relies on hard, verified facts, not management estimates typed onto draft paper.
To understand why this distinction matters, one must look at how the draft numbers were assembled.
The reported jump in COCOBOD’s revenue—moving to GH¢48.62 billion—was heavily driven by global market price surges and currency adjustments. More importantly, those unverified operational figures rest entirely on internal management accounts. When an institution operates without quarterly monitoring reports and without a signed performance contract, the state oversight body is left reading whatever the institution chooses to send.
In financial reporting, a draft statement is a working document. It is an unexamined draft subject to audit adjustments, asset write-downs, and liability discoveries. Parading an unaudited draft figure as a monumental public triumph is equivalent to a student writing their own end-of-term report card in pencil, refusing to submit their homework for marking, and then demanding a national scholarship based on the grade they gave themselves.
Consider the compliance table alongside other state institutions. Entities like BOST Energies, Consolidated Bank Ghana, the Electricity Company of Ghana, and the Ghana Grid Company all submitted fully audited financial statements, signed their performance contracts, and submitted their quarterly reports to SIGA. They respected the regulatory framework.
Why was COCOBOD given a free pass to trumpet headline gains based on draft paperwork while ignoring the basic rules of public accountability?
Ghana’s cocoa sector is the backbone of rural livelihoods and national stability. It is too vital to be managed through PR headlines and unverified claims. True economic competence is proved through disciplined compliance, published external audits, and verifiable balance-sheet strength.
Until the Ghana Cocoa Board subjects its books to full, independent audit verification and fulfills its statutory reporting duties to SIGA, the celebrated GH¢5.11 billion turnaround remains what it currently is: an unverified paper claim that poses more questions than answers. Ghanaian taxpayers deserve the complete, audited truth, not a curated selection of draft numbers.
