?10.5bn Lost in 7 Months

The GHANA Association of Forest Plantation Wood Millers and Exporters (GATEX) has corroborated the publication by Chronicle that the nation was losing billions of cedis through a fraudulent syndicate in teak exportation.

"Between January and July 2002, last year, the nation lost a colossal sum of $1,197,195.08, about ?10.5 billion through the teak exporting syndicates," GATEX has revealed.

The association has therefore appealed to the government to interdict the executives of the Forestry Commission and set up a probe into their decade of unsustainable and irresponsible management of the nation's plantation resources.

"If steps are not taken to arrest the situation promptly, the syndicate would continue to milk the nation dry," GATEX appealed.

GATEX noted that it was regrettable that some senior officials of the Forestry Commission, the very institution set up to ensure transparency, were rather assisting some unscrupulous foreign firms from the Far East to outwait the indigenous companies.

"This behaviour of officials at the Forestry Commission has, therefore, paved the way for these foreign firms to dupe the nation of millions of dollars in their questionable operations," the association pointed out.

According to GATEX it has enough evidence that the syndicate was able to milk the nation through under-invoicing, under-measurements and fraudulent bank transactions.

GATEX stated that the syndicate had persistently ignored the Bank of Ghana's criteria for the establishment of the letters of credit (L/C) and the repatriation of foreign exchange earnings and substituted it with their own system of payment in local currency realized from the sale of imported essential commodities.

GAXTE made the call at a press conference in Accra during which the association also showed video tapes of the illegal activities of the syndicate to the media.

"Within the past decade the Forestry Commission has displayed bias, lack of transparency and favouritism in the allocation of timber resources. GATEX is therefore accusing the Forestry Commission of complicity in the criminal and unsustainable management of the nation's forest resources," the association stated.

GATEX named some of the companies milking the nation as Prashanti Limited, Indo-Ghana Limited, Teak & Lumber and Olam Ghana Ltd.

In order to clamp down on the activities of the fraudulent net-work, GATEX stated that it recommended the formation of a joint Task Force with the Forestry Commission and the CEPS to oversee the packing and sealing of containers of teak before it was exported but their suggestion was ignored, giving the perpetrating companies a field day to carry out their questionable acts.

The association noted that in the last two years, it has given ample proof of the involvement of a number of companies in economic crimes in the wood plantation industry to the Forestry Commission but the commission has blatantly refused to act.

"GATEX has evidence of collaboration and favouritism by officials of the Forestry Commission, which is causing financial loss to the state."

On the pre-qualification which was released by the Commission last week and published in newspapers, GATEX said it strongly believes that the executive director and some other top officials of the Forestry Commission have linked up with some of the companies pre-qualified.

According to GATEX their belief stems from the fact that some of the pre-qualified companies were found to have engaged in unscrupulous deals and economic crimes in teak exportation by an interim report of the seven-member committee set up by the Commission to investigate the allegations of fraudulent teak exportation.

"For the Forestry Commission to turn round overnight to ignore the interim report and pre-qualify the companies which adverse findings were made against for duping this nation millions of dollars, smacked of corruption on the part of the commissioner, and all those who were privy to this information but decided to pre-qualify the said companies," a member of GATEX told Chronicle in a follow-up interview after the press conference.

GATEX revealed that the in spite of laid down rules, the Forestry Commission blatantly disregarded section 2 of the Timber Resources Act 547 of 1997, which stipulates that only limited liability companies or partnership companies should be considered for timber utilization permits and doled out permits to individuals.

It would be recalled that early this year, Chronicle published a story about how the nation was losing billions of hard-earned currency through fraudulent teak exporters with the help of the institution set up to check such reckless activities.