So who, is being sincere to Ghanaians on developments to do with the Achimota Forest? Former Minister Mike Hammah, or the National Democratic Congress Minority in parliament?
Mike Hammah, a former Minister of Lands and Natural Resources under the erstwhile J.E.A Mills administration, has confirmed some explanations given by the current sector minister, Samuel Jinapor following a public outburst over the de-classification of parts of the Achimota Forest Reserve.
According to Mike Hammah, it was under his tenure that a committee was set up to look into the petition from the Owoo family. According to Mike Hammah therefore, the Akufo Addo Administration acting in the right direction.
Mr. Mike Hammah, in an interview with Eyewitness News on Citi FM, stated that the family’s quest to retain its land dates back to 2007 when it petitioned President John Kufuor for the release of the portion of the Forest Reserve adjoining the Tema motorway.
“After consultations between the Presidency, it was recommended that the petition be granted,” Mr. Hammah told Citi FM.
In 2011, he further explained, the Owoo Family, submitted another petition to the then Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, for the grant of portions of the Forest Reserve.
The Minister constituted a committee to inquire into the legitimacy of the request that was eventually granted.
“Yes, there was a petition from the Owoo family, and the reason being that, over the years, the government has acquired a lot of the land and some compensation has not been paid. They thought that they were being denied their land.”
“Under the circumstances, we set up a committee to look into the petition and come up with recommendations consistent with our policy directions; moving away from the consumption value of the forest to the non-consumption value of the forest and promoting ecotourism and biodiversity conservation. That is what I inherited from my predecessor, Collins Dauda”, he said on Eyewitness News.
In contrast to the position of Mike Hammah, members of his party in parliament have sought to portray that the procedural decisions taken with regard to the Achimota Forest was fraught with corruption and the question that immediately arises is who is to be believed, and why the Minority in parliament failed to contact Mr. Mike Hammah before issueing their statement.
The distressing aspect of the whole thing is that at least one Member of Parliament on the NDC side is also a former Minister of Lands and Natural Resources in the person of Hon Collins Dauda and played in role in the Achimota Forest Saga.
The Minority in parliament yesterday, in a statement fraught with ill-will towards all men, stated that they have observed with ‘utmost dismay in consonance with the shock expressed by many Ghanaians on President Akuffo-Addo’s decision to reclassify the Achimota forest’.
They stated, without a shred of evidence, that they ‘equally denounce the huge appetite of government officials in present times in grabbing government lands all over the regions of Ghana’ and ‘are particularly not amused by the extension of this objectionable act to include reserved lands’.
Interestingly, the statement ignored the roles played by Mike Hammah, former President John Evans Atta Mills (late), former President John Mahama, and even former President John Kufuor, under whose reign the petitions for the return of the lands to the allodial Owoo family began.
The statement by the Minority went on, untruthfully, that the Achimota Forest has been classified as being no longer a forest reserve. Here the Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu, who addressed the press;
“To start with the decision to classify the Achimota forest as not a forest reserve any longer is dangerous and does not reflect our avowed objective of keeping the only green area in Accra and to a large extent restoring deforested land in the country,” Hon. Haruna Iddrisu stated.
This statement is a lie.
In his address to the press, the current Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, stated;
“The general public is entreated to disregard these reports as they are false, baseless and non-factual. Indeed, what the propagators of these messages have refused to add is that, E.I. 144 was published together with the Forests (Achimota Firewood Plantation Forest Reserve) (Amendment) Instrument, 2022 (E.I. 154).
“What EI 144 does is to make the peripheral portions of the Forest Reserve, which had already been granted to the Owoo Family in September, 2013, portions of which have already been developed, cease to be a Forest Reserve, to ensure a development that is consistent with the area of the Forest Reserve.
“Further, E.I. 154, on the other hand, states emphatically, the area of the forest shall remain a Forest Reserve. Both instruments contain adequate provisions that seek to protect the ecological integrity of the Forest Reserve,” the statement said.
Interestingly, the decision to grant the affected portions to the Owoo Family, was done in September 2013, when the NDC was in power and Mr. John Dramani Mahama was president.
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