The Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission, Mr John Allotey, has visited and inspected a refuse dump site at Bosofuor, close to the Offin Forest Reserve in Mampong, Ashanti Region, where 8,011 tree seedlings were dumped.
The visit was to ascertain the circumstances under which the seedlings were dumped at the site, what has been done to the seedlings and inspect the success rate of seedlings planted on Green Ghana Day 2022 in the Ashanti Mampong District.
Addressing the media, Mr Allotey said “We can’t confirm or conclude that the seedlings were part of the ones raised for this year’s Green Ghana Day,” he concluded.
The District Manager of the Forest Services Division, Mampong, Mr Seth Owusu Abrokwah, briefing the Chief Executive, said out of the 8,011 seedlings found at the dumpsite, 5,891 seedlings were alive whiles 2,120 seedlings were dead. The live seedlings were planted in the Offin Forest Reserve while the dead seedlings were taken back to the nursery for the soil and poly bags to be reused.
He added that the incident has been reported to the Mampong District Police Station. And to confirm this, the Chief Executive together with the media visited the District Police Station for confirmation.
The Mampong District Police Commander, ACP/Mr. David Amoako confirmed the report and said investigations were ongoing.
The Chief Executive was accompanied by the Director of RMSC, Mr Kofi Affum Baffoe; Ashanti Regional Manager, FSD, Mr Clement Omari; Deputy Regional Manager, Mr Kwasi Frimpong; District Manager at the Regional Office, Mr Alfred Yabepone; and the District Manager of Mampong, Mr Seth Owusu Abrokwah.
Background
Over one thousand tree seedlings meant to be planted at Mampong in the Ashanti Region under the Green Ghana project have been found at a refuse dump.
According to a Journalist with the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation in Mampong, Clement Kwaku Adu, his investigation has revealed that the Assembly Member for Mampong Bosofour, Hon. K. Denteh is the one who dumped the seedlings.
He told Ejura-based Naagyei FM’s Henry Lord that his checks show that the seedlings which include teak and Mahogany were given to the assemblyman by the MP for him to facilitate the planting exercise.
Clement Kwaku Adu, said when the assemblyman got wind that the MP was returning to the constituency, after failing to do his work, he hurriedly gathered the seedlings and dumped them in a bush to hide his inefficiency.
“It is instructive to note that the MP gave the assemblyman money from his pocket to facilitate the planting of the seedlings. Instead of the assemblyman paying the field workers (people who were helping in the planting exercise) GHC20.00 a day, he rather paid them GHC10.00, so the initial group of people got angry and the assemblyman dissolved that group. He then decided to use another group to plant the trees but the exercise didn’t go well as planned and the seedlings were abandoned. So in order that the MP does not get to know how inefficient he (assemblyman) has been, the latter gathered the seedlings and dumped them in a bush.”
According to the Journalist, he’s reached out to the MP for his reaction to the issue but he’s failed to respond.
Meanwhile, the Assemblyman, Hon. K. Denteh in an interview on Naagyei FM, rubbished the claims made by the journalist, insisting that he was not responsible for dumping the seedlings.
The government budgeted about GHC 9.6 million for this year’s (2022) ‘Green Ghana’ project.
The Green Ghana Day was introduced in 2021, by H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo as part of an aggressive national afforestation/reforestation programme to restore the lost forest cover of Ghana and contribute to the global effort to mitigate climate change. The maiden edition was held on June 11 2021, where an estimated 7 million tree seedlings were planted across the nation.
