Ogbeh, who made the disclosure at an interactive meeting with the House of Representatives Committee on Rural Development, blamed the huge debt profile on the failure of states to meet their 25 per cent counterpart funding for fertiliser subsidy scheme.
This is just as the House has called on the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to ensure that cocoa and other products meant for export are properly processed to meet regulatory requirements and global standards.
The resolution of the House followed the adoption of a motion entitled “Need to Standardise Cocoa and other Agricultural Products Meant for Export” sponsored by Mayowa Akinfolarin.
The lawmaker noted that in the past, no agricultural commodity surpassed cocoa in terms of earnings of foreign exchange.
He regretted that for some time, cocoa processing companies have been burdened with different challenges.
He identified the challenges cocoa farmers confront to include high cost of production, unpredictable and fluctuating prices of raw cocoa beans, lack of funds and non-standardised cocoa products.
While noting that the cocoa sub-sector still offers huge employment opportunities, directly and indirectly, the lawmaker urged that NAFDAC immediately deals with issue of standardisation in order to stop the slide in export.
“It is of concern that cocoa and other agricultural products are exported without testing, which leads to the products being returned or destroyed when they are tested abroad and found below global standard” Akinfolarin said.
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