Redouble efforts to achieve afforestation targets — MP

Page 14, June 22, 2010

Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
THE Member of Parliament (MP) for Tano South, Mr Andrew Adjei-Yeboah has called on the government to redouble its efforts at achieving the objectives of the country’s afforestation programme.
He said the pace at which the programme was being implemented was not the best and intimated that any delay could spell doom for the timber industry.
The MP made these observations in an interview with the Daily Graphic after the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Collins Dauda had answered a question on the subject on the floor of Parliament last Friday.
The MP had asked the minister what the ministry was doing to assist the timber industry to get raw materials looking at the alarming rate at which the natural forest cover was being dissipated.
Mr Adjei-Yeboah noted that even though the country had an installed machinery capacity to process five million cubic metres of timber per annum, timber industries were allowed to process only one million cubic metres of timber.
He suggested that the government’s plan of planting trees on 30,000 hectares of land per annum should be increased to 60,000 to ensure that adequate supply of raw materials was provided the timber industry in future.
Mr Adjei-Yeboah also advised the government to provide incentive s to entice more people from the private sector to venture into tree plantation.
Answering the question, Alhaji Dauda stated that the government was tackling the problem of raw materials within the timber industry on a short-term, medium-term and long term basis.
He said the short-term, import levy on imported logs had been waived to enable competitive companies to import logs into the country, while the annual allowable cut of timber had been raised from one million cubic metres to two million cubic metres.
Alhaji Dauda said the ministry was also developing a Legislative Instrument (L.I) to ensure the issuance of permits in off-reserve and plantation areas, which did not qualify for the award of timber utilisation contracts.
He explained that for the long-term, the government was rigorously implementing the National Forestry Plantation Development Programme to make wood available with an annual target of 30,000 hectares.
In addition, the ministry was also promoting the less use of timber species explaining that out of the over 250 timber species found in the forest, only about 60 species were being utilised for commercial purposes.