The Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Sulemana Braimah, is calling for transparency and accountability from the Forestry Commission regarding the supply and deployment of 4.1 million tree seedlings contracted for the 2025 planting season.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, July 10, Braimah raised questions over the status of the seedlings, noting that contracts were signed as far back as January 3, 2025, by the then Chief Executive of the Commission, Mr. John Allotey.
According to the post, 11 separate contracts were awarded to six companies, each tasked with supplying seedlings at a unit cost of GHS 5, totaling over GHS 20 million in public expenditure. The seedlings were reportedly intended for the 2025 tree planting season .
“We are in July, and this must be the 2025 planting season for which the seedling contracts were awarded,” Braimah noted. “I hope the six companies have supplied the total of 4.1 million seedlings and planting is ongoing.”
He also highlighted that many of the contracts were contingent upon the companies’ satisfactory delivery of similar contracts in 2024, prompting further inquiry into where the previous year’s seedlings were planted and whether proper verification and value-for-money assessments were conducted.
“It will be great to know where the 2024 seedlings were planted,” he added, implying a potential pattern of unmonitored or unverified deliveries.
The MFWA Executive Director’s concerns come at a time of heightened public scrutiny over environmental initiatives, especially in light of Ghana’s afforestation and reforestation commitments under the Green Ghana Project and broader climate adaptation strategies.
