Sir John is dead and gone but his name is alive in the galamsey fight and land-grabbing saga

The originator of the political expression ‘fear delegates’, the late Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie aka Sir John has made airwaves after his Covid-related death on July 1, 2020. Following his death, it was revealed in his signed will that some parcel of land in the protected Achimota Forest should be appropriated to some of his relatives.

As he was the CEO of the Forestry Commission, the late Sir John was supposed to ensure the protection and proper management of our natural resources in Protected Areas (PAs) including forest reserves as well as Ramsar sites in the country.

I was struggling to understand why a forest reserve with its huge ecological benefits should be subjected to such an unprecedented land-grabbing and given out for galamsey concessions.

The Bombshell Galamsey Report authored by Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng again

mentioned the name of the late Sir John who was overly generous in dishing out Forest Reserves (47 of them) for galamsey prospecting and mining concessions.

To my knowledge, this is the first of its kind to be reported and the indiscriminate destruction of many Forest Reserves in Ghana in search of gold with no regard to floral and faunal species, their natural habitats as well as provision of other ecosystem services.

It is a double standard of the highest proportion! How can the Ghana government be promoting regreening of the country but deliberately devastating our natural vegetation with rich biodiversity via galamsey operations in the face of global climate change?

Indeed, it will take several years to be able to restore our natural environment including water bodies. What has happened to our Forest Reserves can be best described as environmental terrorism.

An independent bi-partisan Parliamentary Committee should urgently investigate those who are highly complicit in the Bombshell Galamsey Report authored by the good old Prof. Frimpong-Boateng and leaked by Kevin Taylor.

It is indeed unfortunate that the late Sir John is dead and gone but his name is still alive for the wrong reasons such as galamsey and land-grabbing issues in PAs.