Alhassan Suhuyini, a member of parliament (MP) representing Tamale North, claims that the Green Ghana program requires precise processes to allow for accurate tracking of its development.
Mr. Suhuyini added in an interview with Eyewitness News on Citi FM in Accra on Friday that this was also done to prevent the plan from being utilized to steal money.
"The Green Ghana initiative has good intentions. Money is consistently allocated to it. We are informed of the amount of trees that are planted, but there are no obvious ways to check if the numbers generated are actually being planted. We are informed of performance percentages, but we are unaware of the standards utilized to calculate success percentages when assessing the performance of newly planted trees.
"Contracting is a murky subject. We don't know if hiring decisions are made based on hand-selected candidates or on competitive bidding. Because of this, I stated that even while it is necessary and useful, it must be done in a way that prevents it from turning into a scam designed only to steal money. If Ghana is "green," it must actually be "green Ghana," not "green corruption."
According to the Tamale North MP, the nation has spent close to GH 500 million on national afforestation programs over the previous five years, but the amount of forest destruction is severe.
"So there is a need for us to ask what we are getting for how much we are putting into projects aimed at protecting our forests and improving the forest cover in the country, when the records show that there is a high rate of depletion of our forests," the author writes.
The President stated that 7 million trees had been planted a few weeks after the Lands Minister's revelation that 4.89 million trees had been planted in 2021, according to Mr. Suhuyini. He did not find this to be pleasant.
"I recall that in 2022, I asked the Minister to provide information on the number of trees planted, the number of contractors employed, and other pertinent details. That knowledge was given by him, and I made use of it in my argument. For the 2021 season, 4.89 million trees, according to the Minister at the time, had been planted. The President did claim that 7 million trees had been planted, though, a few weeks later. It made a big impact to me, in my opinion.
When asked if, for instance, "we are planting 10 million trees this year, and next year, 70% of those trees are doing well," he responded that a verifiable methodology would be helpful. Anyone who wants to verify could use the simple calculation to determine whether the trees are truly doing well.