Talensi: Forest raiders cart $11m worth of timber to China

Loggers, alleged to be operating illegally, have invaded a number of forests in the Talensi District of the Upper East region, rendering bare acres of rich woodlands.

Consignments of timbers worth over $11 million, according to sources, have been trucked away from the area en route to China.

The forest raiders are targeting mainly rosewoods and other high-quality timbers said to be in desperate demand in Asia. Spies in the district told Starr News the loggers have been enormously generous for the past two years, bribing their way through the thick forests under the watch of some whistle-bearing authorities.

At least three assembly members, some senior staff of the district assembly and two forest guards in the district have been mentioned among those widely alleged to have been bribed with cash and motorbikes.

Rage as deprived residents lament losses
The disturbing discovery has sparked a wave of fury among residents who feel they have been intellectually raped in ways more than one.

The district is considered one of the deprived zones of Ghana’s north. It has a stunted central market that generates an average amount of revenue so little the district assembly feels grossly embarrassed to associate itself with it in public.

A number of tourist sites lie within the open belly of the hilly district. They have waited in vain for centuries to be locally developed and marketed globally to yield the returns that can bring change. The only surviving factory in the district today is the quarry at Pwalugu. The tomato processing factory, also situated at Pwalugu, has been shut down for more than half a decade due to financial hiccups.

There are mineral deposits in some parts of the area, only benefiting some individuals as scores of families still wake up to a new day not sure where their breakfast will come from. Only two roads are tarred today in a district of 44 communities, a vast infrastructural deficit that has condemned civil servants and rural aid workers to the mercy of terrible rock-layered roads in the dry season and depressing swampy paths in the rainy season. One of the roads was tarred recently and it is only about 7 kilometres long whilst the other is wearing away with age.

The depth of widespread deprivation in the district explains why concerned residents are blind with anger against the alleged illegal loggers for looting their forests in quantities that represent huge sums of hard currencies.

The raided forests are in five communities including Namoranteng, Tolla, Nung, Bapeila and Beung.

As of the time Starr News visited the forests, a truck loaded with rosewood could be seen stationary. Angry residents of the surrounding communities had seized the vehicle and handed its driver and conductor to a police team who stormed the area following a tipoff. Members of the communities also removed the battery in the vehicle to prevent anyone from driving it away.

“I arrested the truck. As for Namoranteng, they have finished all the trees there long time. The trucks have been passing here fully loaded for about one year now. I can say about sixty trucks have left the forests. One truck contains two containers. If you check, one container is about ninety thousand dollars. If you calculate that, you can see how much we have lost. That money could have gone into addressing poor level of development in the district. Those responsible for what they have done to our forests must be brought to book,” Maxwell Kuug, a miner in the area, lamented.

Zebil Ayala, the Unit Committee Chairman for Datuko, said he had tried to stop the loggers but gave up after he realised that senior politicians had decided to watch them “finish” the forests.

“I’m the unit committee chairman here. I heard the machines last year, making noise when I went to my farm. I went there, saw them cutting the trees. I opposed it but it was difficult to know who gave them the permit. It’s difficult to tell the number of trees cut so far. We’ve heard they are bribing people with money and motorbikes,” the unit committee chairman said.

DCE, Forestry Commission cross swords
The District Chief Executive (DCE) for Talensi, Edward Awunnore, has been widely rumored to have received the alleged illegal lumbermen with open arms in exchange for freebies.

But his telephone interview with Starr News saw him descend with very-harsh words on not only the fellers but also the Forestry Commission.

The loggers, according to the DCE, tiptoed into the forests behind the back of the assembly and had operated for some time before he got wind of their presence there. He said a police team was dispatched immediately to the jungles at his request. But the operation, he concluded, was foiled with the loggers escaping arrest after a forestry officer, whose name he did not mention, allegedly had alerted them that the police were approaching the forests.

“I must also indicate that there is one notorious, so-called forestry guard by name Michael. He is the one who always leads these illegal people to some of the areas and they do these things especially at midnight. People get up the following morning and they see only logs lying down. We need to protect our forest reserves. The forestry department is to protect the forests. That’s why they have guards. The forestry guard and his accomplices should be arrested and prosecuted. That is my position. They are not doing their work well; that is why somebody can penetrate,” Mr. Awunnore added.

But then again, in swift response to the DCE’s stance, the Bolgatanga Municipal Manager of the Forestry Commission, Gabriel Agana, who also supervises the forestry departments in Talensi, Bongo and Nabdam districts, said the under-pressure loggers are in the forests backed by government.

He told Starr News the loggers had received the go-ahead, supported with letters, from the Ministry of Lands, Mines and Forestry to hunt for rosewoods in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions. China, he said, is building a rosewood city in Beijing, and some contractors had secured the green light from the ministry to rummage around for that species of wood in northern Ghana.

He disclosed that the Talensi District Assembly received a council waybill of Gh¢500 from the loggers for every truck leaving the forests with timbers. Some undisclosed amounts of money, according to him, were also paid to the raided communities as part of a corporate social responsibility agreement.

The controversy deepens
The DCE did not dispute the claim by the Forestry Commission that the assembly received Gh¢500 for each truck conveying logs from the district.

He said the fees the assembly collected were only the usual bills demanded everywhere for trees cut down and not necessarily a gesture to suggest the assembly endorses the operation of the loggers in the district.

“When we got information the first time that people were there, we invited him (Mr. Agana) to this assembly. It was at that meeting that he was pulling out some documents and justifying why the people should be there, which I kicked against. I said no, I would not agree. And it was at that point I constituted a forest protection committee to go there. And the committee went there and met some logs they had already cut. The committee took a decision that what they had already cut they should follow the laid-down process and convey those ones, but no more cutting,” Mr. Awunnore explained.

He said the truck involved in the latest development was arrested after it was discovered again that the “illegal people were doing fresh cutting”.

“We said no more cutting until recently when I got information that they had cut and I had to use the police in the night to arrest them. I have referred the matter from Talensi to Bolgatanga. That is why the truck is parked there. And I have taken it up to the regional level so that the Regional Minister would invite the Regional Forestry Manager to come and explain what is going on,” the DCE said.

But according to Mr. Agana, the DCE only orchestrated the arrest of one of the trucks after an assemblyman had failed to account for some money he received on behalf of his community from one of the logging contractors.

“He (the DCE) did not ask the police to arrest the truck because of any illegal felling of trees. The truth of the matter is an assemblyman took money from one of the contractors in the forests and refused to account to his community. The community members reported to the DCE to arrest that truck and to call the assemblyman to account because they thought if they allowed the truck to go they might not get it again,” Mr. Agana disclosed.

He also described as “useless comments” the claims made by the DCE and the residents that forest guards were aiding illegal loggers in raiding the district’s timberlands.

“The DCE formed a committee to monitor the operations of the contractors in the forests. I was asked to give a representative to the committee from the Forestry Commission. I gave Michael. Now, they are saying Mike has done what? Is he the hunter? Their own people are hunters. They go to see the trees and mark them for the chainsaw operators. The labourers are from there. The chainsaw people are from there. Is Mike the hunters who go in with the chainsaw people? These are useless comments,” he said.

Indicted persons deny wrongdoing
Starr News contacted one of the contractors, whose name was only mentioned as Ibrahim. He spoke harshly, saying a few words in denial on the telephone, and ended the call abruptly.

Two of the three assemblymen accused so far of having received carrots in exchange for the rare wild trees could not be reached as of the time of filing this report. But the Assemblyman for Sheaga, Michael Zoogah, one of the faulted parties, waved aside the assertions that he had been bought off.

“I have never taken any money from anybody. What they are doing is not in my electoral area. Those who have alleged that I have taken money should come and prove. I have never taken any money from anybody,” Mr. Zoogah stressed.