By Samuel Ansah Boateng
Despite government’s order for the outright ban on the exportation of rosewoods from the country, your authoritative New Crusading Guide has been hinted by deep throat sources in government, attempts by some powerful hands to give green light to one private owned company to go ahead with the illicit trade.
This clandestine move, allegedly spearheaded by the Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Benito Owusu Bio; is to instruct the Forestry Commission to allow the Kete Krachi Timber Recovery Limited (KKTR), export Rosewoods from the country.
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It will be recalled that the Kete Krachi Timber Recovery Limited (KKTR), operators of the Volta Lake timber concession, petitioned the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources for a special dispensation to export quantities of rosewoods that had been salvaged from the Volta Lake.
Our investigations have however revealed that the KKTR Company has never exported rosewood out of the country in their several years of operations. Sources close to the company however revealed to our reporters that they had no idea the company had discovered any quantity of rosewood in the Volta Lake. What they suspect is a deliberate ploy by high profile personalities in government to use their company to export certain number of rosewoods out of the country.
“KKTR was given the concession to salvage submerged wood, which posed danger to transportation on the Volta Lake, there was nothing about rosewood salvaging in our agreement. It came as a shock to me when I saw plans by the company to start exporting rosewood from the volta lake”, the source hinted.
‘’This move if unchecked, will open the floodgates for the company to source rosewood from all over the country for export, thereby making the rosewood ban non-effective’’, he noted.
The ban on Rosewood was a measure taken by the government to stop illicit harvesting, transporting, processing, trading and exporting of rosewoods and control its exploitation.
Government had also directed that; all confiscated rosewoods be auctioned only to the domestic market.
According to the directive, no person who acquires rosewood through the auction process would be permitted to export outside the country.
Notwithstanding, our checks at the forestry commission indicated the ban and exportation of rosewood was still in effect.
Rosewood export started in Ghana in 2004, with an initial export volume of only 18m3 in that year. The export volume and value have increased since 2009, when the Government granted permit to five (5) companies to remove all trees, including economic trees in the reservoir, to make way for the construction of the Bui Dam. China is the dominant importer of Ghanaian rosewood, representing over 90% of total exports. Various governments in the past had recognized the need to apply a ban on rosewood as a measure to control the exploitation.
Despite all these efforts, the ban did not yield the expected results and hence, on 12th March, 2019, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources was compelled once again to impose a ban on the harvesting, transportation and export of rosewood.
Meanwhile, all attempts to reach the deputy Minister, Honourable Benito Owusu Bio, through calls and messages, since last week, for clarification on the allegations have proven futile.
More anon…
