Concern about decline in timber industry

Accra, Aug. 9, GNA - The Timber and Woodworkers Union (TWU) of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) on Wednesday called on the Government to undertake an urgent dialogue between stakeholders in the timber industry to critically look at its future.
A statement signed by Mr Joshua Ansah, General Secretary of TWU, said the Government needed to urgently salvage the industry from further decline and lay-offs.
The Union noted that the industry was being crippled by unbearable levies, taxes and charges.
The levies include 400 per cent increase in stumpage fees; one per cent concession and management fees and the equivalent of five per cent of the total stumpage fees as social responsibility charges. Others are three per cent of gross values on all exports for marketing and promotion and 10 per cent on all air-dried lumber as export levy.
The statement said these charges and levies had resulted in unprecedented lay-offs because employers were unable to cope with the burden of high cost of doing business.
Over 3,000 workers had been laid off by employers between January and July 2006 and 2,000 jobs were on line to be laid off in the next few weeks, the Union said.
The statement said employers attributed the lay-offs to non-availability of raw materials and high cost of doing business. It said in the 1960s and 1970s, the timber industry used to be the second largest foreign exchange earner after cocoa and it provided a lot of jobs to Ghanaians as well as essential input in the growing construction industry.