The decision was reached at a stakeholder meeting held in Accra on Friday to discuss effective regulation procedures to clamp down on the illegal trade. Institutions present included the Police, Immigration, and Judicial services, Ghana Armed Forces, Ghana Standards Authority, Food and Drugs Authority, Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, and Ghana Shippers Authority. 

Dr Andy Osei Okrah, the Chief Executive Officer of the TCDA, said the taskforce would ensure strict enforcement of the TCDA Act, 2019 (Act 1010), and its Legislative Instrument (LI 2471). The Act and LI require all actors in the oil palm value chain, including importers of cooking oil, to be registered and licensed by the Authority. 

“It is mandatory that any actor who wants to operate in the oil palm industry must register with the Tree Crops Development Authority and obtain the necessary license and permit to import or trade,” Dr Okrah stated. “We realised that because of our newness, many people are unaware of our mandate, so we engaged stakeholders to educate them. I am happy they have pledged their support to help us ensure compliance for the economic benefit of the country,” he said.

 Dr Okrah said the Authority could not achieve effective regulation alone and needed to work closely with relevant state agencies as prescribed by law. He explained that the joint taskforce would monitor, inspect, and verify the registration and licensing status of businesses dealing in cooking oil. “If there are recalcitrant ones who are not following the law, then the law will take its course,” he noted.

Data presented by the Oil Palm Development Association of Ghana (OPDAG) at the meeting revealed that about 90 per cent of cooking oil on the local market was smuggled and uncertified. The Association warned that the trend threatened the survival of Ghana’s oil palm industry, which employed more than 850,000 people, including 36,000 women, and contributed over GH¢500 million in annual taxes. 

Mr Paul Amaning, the President of OPDAG, said smuggling of cooking oil through the country’s land borders continued to undermine local production. “We have almost 1.2 million people working in the industry, paying corporate and value-added taxes, yet traders import cheap oil through unapproved routes without paying any tax. That makes their products cheaper and unfairly competitive,” he said. He urged the government and security agencies to enforce existing policies requiring importers of vegetable oil to use designated ports such as Takoradi, rather than land borders, to help curb illegal trade and protect local jobs. 

The TCDA, established under Act 1010 in 2019, is mandated to regulate and develop Ghana’s tree crops subsector, namely: cashew, mango, coconut, rubber, shea, and oil palm, to help diversify the economy beyond cocoa and promote value addition across the value chain.