Alhaji Idris deplores indiscriminate bush burning

Tamale, Dec. 15, GNA - Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, Northern Regional Minister, has expressed worry about the rate at which the environment was being depleted due to excessive bush burning. He said economic conditions in the Region were unfavourable and that indiscriminate bush burning was escalating the poverty situation in the three northern regions.

Alhaji Ali Idris told the GNA in an interview in Tamale on Friday that every year farmers in the Upper East, Upper West and the Northern Regions lost much of their produce to bushfires and had to lean on donor support for survival.

He said apart from farmers loosing their produce, wooden electricity poles, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, (GBC) and the Ghana Telecom (GT) facilities were also being affected by bushfires. Alhaji Idris said: "It is very sad that our Region is very poor and we are not acting responsibly to protect the environment, which we all depend on for our daily bread" and that people should not forget that "when the last tree dies, the last man dies."

The Minister said government was spending a lot of money and other resources to extend electricity to rural communities throughout the country and that it was necessary for those communities to protect the facilities for their own good.

Alhaji Idris called on the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), Ghana Police Service, and neighbourhood watchdog committees, to collaborate and control bushfires as a means of protecting the environment. He said there was the need for the three regions to dialogue and institute committed volunteer fire fighters and motivate them to ensure that they apprehend people who act irresponsibly to deplete the environment.

Alhaji Idris said the Northern Regional Coordinating Council was ready to assist any volunteer group that would serve as a surveillance team on the environment to stop the indiscriminate bush burning.