Ghana is said to be losing up to $1.6 million annually on forest revenue due to illegal operations in the sector.
An additional $200 million of revenue is also lost through illegal chain saw operations.
Some companies are also in default of non-payment of stampage fees, including non-payment of timber rights fees.
These were made public during a seminar organised by the Editors Forum Ghana in collaboration with Civic Response, on the theme ‘Saving Ghana’s Forest: Time for a unified law.’
Mr Clement Kojo Akapame, a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), in a presentation during the forum, noted that Ghana needs a single forest law to regulate the management of the country’s forest resources.
He said currently there are 27 Acts of Parliament and Legislative Instruments with their amendments dating as far back as 1927.
Mr Akapame stated that the forest and wild life policy of 2012 called for strengthening of the legal framework to give permanency to gazetted forest reserves and protected areas in order to conserve representative samples of major ecosystem and species in the country.
The lecturer also explained that Ghana loses from not being able to attract trade by proving adequately on the international market that lumber being exported is legal, in conformity with the Voluntary Partnership Agreement with the EU; the definition of legal lumber is highly contingent on Ghana’s law and its clarity.
Mrs Adjoa Yeboah Afari, Chairperson of the Editors Forum Ghana (EFG), said our survival depends on the forest, thus we need to manage it properly.
She alluded to similar insightful forums held in the past, and reiterated the EFG’s commitment to educating journalists on topical issues and providing platforms for their discussion.
She said the EFG served as a peer review mechanism working behind the scenes on topical issues.
Dr Doris Yaa Dartey, Vice-Chairperson of EFG, called on the media to attach great importance to forest issues and constantly report on them to create the awareness on the need to have laws that will regulate our forest resources well.
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