Forestry Commission opens first timber plantation bid

The Forestry Commission Division of the Ministry of Lands and Forestry on Friday opened its first plantation timber competitive bidding for 141 pre-qualified companies in Accra.

The bidding process, organized under the new Forest and Wildlife Policy of the Timber Resource Management Act of 1999, was to ensure transparency and discard the previous process where people were just given permits to harvest timber for the Commission.

Companies that could offer the highest bid for the 28 bids being offered would have the opportunity to harvest timber from plantations.

Professor Dominic Fobih, the Sector Minister, said government adopted the new forestry policy to ensure a fair and transparent procedure in the transaction and allocation of timber plantations.

He said the next batch of bidding would be held in six months time and the bidding would be continuous for the next eight years for selected exotic spices like cedrela and gmelina.

Professor Fobih said lessons learnt from the first bidding exercise that had been categorized into large, medium and small scale would help in organizing subsequent ones more effectively.

He advised the winners to "do a good job" and urged the losers to "be proud of being part of the process".