Greedy law enforcers encouraging illegality in Ghana – Clement Apaak

Member of Parliament for Builsa South and an avid campaigner for the protection of Rosewood, Dr. Clement Apaak, is blaming continuous illegal practices in Ghana on the greed and incompetence of law enforcers.

In a Starr FM interview monitored by ABC News Ghana, Mr. Apaak said “the challenge is the dishonesty, the greed, the incompetence and the lack of attention on the part of the officials who are responsible for the important matters that we as a people should be worried about.”

According to him, the “utmost complicity of district forestry officers, traditional leaders, police officers and even the Lands Minister” are the causes of the recent upsurge in illegal practices the country is facing.

“We all know where these issues exist, it is in the savannah zone, by and large and a part of the transitional zone to the forest zone and so for them to be able to go all the way to places like Damango and its environs to harvest this and even to transport them to where they got to before this particular arrest was made should tell you the utmost complicity on the part of the district forestry officers, on behalf of some traditional leaders, on behalf of police officials, on behalf of government officials and on behalf of the Minister himself, that is what is going on” he stated.

He further argued that government must give Rosewood harvesting and transportation the same attention it gives to illegal small scale mining.

“The fight against Rosewood must be looked at within the context of the fight against illegal small scale mining, if we care to be serious about protecting our environment” he added.

Illegal harvesting and transportation of Rosewood

A Chinese woman, Helena Huang was recently arrested by the Tamale Police for allegedly attempting to smuggle four containers of Rosewood, ABC News Ghanahas gathered.

Though Ms Huang says her arrest was only because she refused to pay a bribe demanded by the arresting officials, the Police Service says no such demand was made by any official. Barely two days after her arrest however, Ms Helena Huang managed to slid through the fingers of the Police. She’s currently being pursued by the Police.

But convener of the media coalition against illegal mining, Ken Ashigbey is asking for an independent investigation into the allegation saying, the police cannot play judge and jury in their own case.

“Our current system where internal investigations are carried out has not really helped us. we need to continue pushing this advocacy so that we can have third party independent investigative bodies to investigate when these allegations come up. Because in the case of natural justice, we know that we should not have the police being judge and jury in their own case. Ideally, we should have another body apart from the police been able to investigate it and I’m pretty sure that there are other independent investigative bodies around who can look into this thing because it is important. Justification is catching up with us and if this woman is making this allegation, we should not sweep it under the carpet", he noted, in an interview monitored by ABC News Ghana.

Background

The Police Service intercepted two trucks in Tamale loaded with two containers of rosewood belonging to the Chinese national.

According to a citinewsroom report on the issue, the Northern Regional Police crime officer, Superintendent Otuo Acheampong, confirmed the arrest, explaining that Helena Huang failed to produce her passport and other documents to show that she legally acquired the products.

“Our officers at one of our barriers in Tamale intercepted two trucks loaded with four containers of rosewood and informed the command. The exhibits were escorted to the police station and preliminary investigations indicated that one Chinese lady, Helena Huang claimed she is the owner of the rosewood and was escorting the product to Tema. Our initial investigation also established that she did not have enough measurement and conveyor certificate as well as a lumber inspection.” he explained in the interview.