Benito Owusu-Bio
GOVERNMENT SPENT GH¢6 million on this year’s Green Ghana Day exercise.
This was exclusive of support extended towards the exercise by other organisations and individuals.
Benito Owusu-Bio, Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, who disclosed this to the media Monday in Accra, said: “The Ministry has put in place a Monitoring and Assessment Team under the chairmanship of Francis Manu-Adabor, who is the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee, to undertake comprehensive field assessment of trees planted this year. Other members of the committee include myself and the CEO of the Forestry Commission.”
He, therefore, urged the public to make conscious efforts in nurturing the trees by watering them, protecting them from destruction, preventing fires and weeding under them until they grow to maturity.
John Allotey, Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, in a remark, said a total of 22,671,697 tree seedlings were successfully distributed during this year’s Green Ghana Day exercise.
He said out of this number, over 40 per cent of the seedlings went into Ghana’s forest reserves, which showed government’s commitment to the project’s objective of restoring Ghana’s depleted vegetative cover as well as its forest reserves.
According to the Forestry Commission boss, his outfit raised over 25 million seedlings while some civil society organisations (CSOs) bought seedlings and submitted to the commission.
He indicated that several critical strategies were implemented in meeting the objectives of this year’s campaign, which include engaging the Department of Parks and Gardens who took over the medians to plant trees in the heart of the city.
The commission also planted modified seeds in some degraded areas as well as in some of the country’s forests.
He noted further that some Ivorians were even spotted wearing Green Ghana T-shirts planting trees on Friday alongside Forestry Commission officials on either side of the Bia River.
BY Nii Adjei Mensahfio