Forestry Commission admits failure

Accra, Sept. 8, GNA - Professor Nii Ashie Kotey, Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission (FC), on Saturday admitted that the Commission had failed to manage Ghana's remaining forests the way they should have. This, he noted, was due to numerous challenges facing staff, including the lack of tools for effective work, such as vehicles, bicycles, rain boots and cutlasses among others.

"Without the right tools we cannot work effectively," Prof Kotey told the Minister for Lands, Forestry and Mines, Madam Esther Obeng Dappah, during a familiarization tour of the Commission's offices at Achimota.

The tour of the FC, being Madam Dappah's first since her assumption of office was to enable her to interact with the staff and acquaint herself with the institutions under the FC including the Forest Services Division, the Wildlife Division and the Timber Industry Development Division.

The core function of the FC is to manage Ghana's forest resources, which at the turn of the century was about eight million hectares, but as at year 2000, the remaining forest cover was estimated to be about 1.634 hectares, made up mainly of forest reserves. Prof Kotey said the lack of tools had come about due to the dwindling nature of the FC's revenue base.

"There are a lot of illegal activities in this sector, depriving the FC of its internally generated fund," he said. Prof Kotey said the major challenge to the FC was how to develop the national parks into major eco-tourism sectors that would provide the FC with a sound revenue base, adding that there were on-going negotiations for investments from the private sector. Madam Dappah expressed satisfaction with last year's Timber industry's earnings, saying Ghana earned 170 million Euros form the export of 451,608 cubic meters of wood products.

Entreating the foresters to take charge of the forests with emphasis on environmental management to ensure that both present and future generations benefited, Madam Dappah said forestry provided direct employment to over 100,000 people and indirect employment to over 2.5 million Ghanaians.

The forests, she said constituted a priceless ecological heritage, protecting land and water resources, controlling floods, warding off wind erosion, storing and re-cycling carbon and providing habitats for wildlife, as well as rich stock of valuable genetic resources. Madam Dappah told the staff to work as if it were their own businesses so that the needed results could be achieved.