Abidjan, Aug 18 - A government crackdown on corruption in top cocoa producer Ivory Coast has crippled the state marketing board and may disrupt operations during the approaching main crop season, exporters said on Monday.
New officials were appointed to run the Coffee and Cocoa Bourse (BCC) after top managers were arrested in June in an anti-graft investigation ordered by Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, but merchants say the new team has not got down to work.
"Since the start of this business, the BCC has been paralysed, too scared to take the slightest decision," said an executive with a major exporting firm in the commercial capital Abidjan.
Exporting firms have not been able to hold meetings with the BCC to discuss practical arrangements for the new cocoa season, which begins on Oct. 1.
One of those tasks is the compilation of a list of officially-recognised buyers and exporters, normally published around the first week of September, the executive said.
He feared that if this was not done in time, it might delay the start of main-crop exports.
Farmers expect the forthcoming main crop harvest to be bigger than last year's, and with prices on world markets just below 28-year highs at around $2,600 per tonne <CCZ8>, cocoa shippers are keen to get up and running as soon as possible.
NO COMMUNICATION
"For the last three months, we've not had a preparatory meeting to talk about how we see it working. That's becoming quite a concern, especially as we get so close to the start of the season," said the director of a major European exporting firm in Abidjan.
If the BCC does not function smoothly, shippers will find it very difficult to work, they said.
"The BCC is our main point of contact in the sector. It's the BCC which gives us access codes for the registration system, which tells us the export procedures and everything else which has to be done, but at the moment, we can't talk to them," said the director of another European export firm in Abidjan.
"There is worry about what's happening in the sector at the moment because we have no information about how things are going to work practically during the upcoming campaign," he said.
Last week, five ministers were called as witnesses in the investigation.
President Gbagbo, who is widely expected to seek another term in post-war elections scheduled for Nov. 30, has said the inquiry would lead to prosecutions and jail terms for those found guilty.