Enact laws to protect ‘Green Ghana’ trees – Salifu Amoako tasks govt

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Archbishop Salifu Amoako, founder of the Alive Chapel InternationalArchbishop Salifu Amoako, founder of the Alive Chapel International

• Salifu Amoako has commended government for the Green Ghana initiative

• He says it is important trees are planted to protect lives

• He however laws to be enacted for the protection of the trees

Archbishop Salifu Amoako, founder of the Alive Chapel International has appealed to the government to enact laws that will impose responsibility of care on persons who planted trees on the national tree planting day.

It is estimated that five million trees were planted in various parts of the country on June 11, 2021 as part of Green Ghana Project.

Addressing pressmen in Accra, Salifu Amoako commended government for the initiative and disclosed that his church participated in the exercise.

He however urged government to institutionalize the initiative and monitor the trees to ensure that the efforts that went into planting the trees do not go waste.

He also charged government to ensure that trees are not felled indiscriminately in the country.

“It is not wrong for us to plant trees now. Ghana must become a green nation but most of the trees God blessed us with have been uprooted. Kumasi used to be called the Garden City but all the trees have been chopped down for real estate. All the trees in Accra have been taken down. Elsewhere you need a permit to cut down trees but here anyone can do that.

“We are building houses anyhow but planting no trees so if the government has found it necessary to plant trees, they are the ones who chopped down the trees so we’ve heard them. We’ll plant the trees but it will take more than a decade to grow. There should be laws to regulate this project. We need to plan and not do things anyhow,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, George Mireku Duker has debunked reports that government spent GH¢125million on the project.

He explained that the widely speculated budget was drafted by the planning committee for the project but less than GH¢1million was used.

“The money we spent is not even up to one million, talk less of getting GHC125million. The committee in charge of the project recommended that to achieve our objective of the project, we need a certain amount of money.

“The proposal by the committee for the fund-raising is what has been making the rounds. They intended to use it for sustainability project. They prepared a very ambitious budget.

“What is going around are projections. They couldn’t raise the money they intended to raise. The committee proposed GHC125million but after the fund-raising they got a little above GHC1million. This what they use for the project that everyone is talking about,” he explained.

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