The Actual Scandal At Ghaba's Forestry Commisssion

One doubts very much that the highly-intelligent and mostly-decent individuals at the top echelons of Ghana's Forestry Commission (FC) -including those who sit on its board of directors - would be so short-sighted and foolish as to put themselves in any situation that results in their actions breaching the rules and regulations that have been put in place, to guide the FC's day to day work and their stewardship of that incredibly vital state institution.

It is for that reason that one wouldn't personally waste one's time worrying about the so-called Alliance for Accountable Governance's (AFAG) accusations of two instances of alleged corruption in the award of seedling contracts by the FC.

AFAG, or anyone else pursuing claims of wrong-doing in the award of those particular seedling contracts by the FC, would find it difficult winning any legal fight in the law courts seeking to pin any blame on the FC's top brass, in this matter.

Like many of the Kufuor-era top-level appointees in officialdom, through whom Kufour & Co still control much of what goes on in Ghana today, the FC's top brass know what they are about.

And as is often the case in post-Nkrumah Ghana, they would have made sure to cover all their bases - for just such an eventuality: such as AFAG's rather daft red-herring.

What is the real scandal in Ghana today, is that we have allowed our nation to become a society in which a conspiracy of silence can occur (such as the total lack of information in the media about the utilisation of payments made by rich nations to Ghana for forest protection and afforestation in our country), which is a deliberate attempt to enable our educated urban elites to surreptitiously benefit from such payments - at the expense of the rural poor: who are the real losers as climate change impacts negatively on Africa, and ought therefore to benefit from all such climate change funding.

The real scandal about the FC, is that whiles the taxpayers' and governments' of those wealthy nations making payments for forest protection and the planting of new tree-plantations in some developing nations as part of their Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) initiatives, think that those payments will change rural economies in developing nations such as Ghana, as they fight climate change, in reality, it is our ruling elites who are ending up getting rich from the help Ghana is getting for the fight against global climate change.

In spite of that outrage, the Ghanaian media, sections of which claim they are championing the cause of sustainable rural development in Ghana, have virtually closed their eyes to the hijacking of those funds by a greedy and politically well-connected few.

When the Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit (accompanied by environment and international development minister, Erik Solheim) visited Ghana recently, who heard any of them calling for a REDD+ deal with Norway - in which all payments made by that nation as part of its Low Carbon Development Strategy initiatives, would be ring-fenced and spent in rural communities nationwide, to green Ghana and give hope to young people in rural Ghana, I ask?

Yet, they (led by the Business and Financial Times!) have collected an advocacy grant from the Business Advocacy Challenge Fund (BUSAC) for just such a purpose. Hmm, Ghana - eyeasem oo: asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa. But I digress!

The real scandal about the FC that the AFAG's in our midst (and their political paymasters, as well as their equally-mercenary allies in the Ghanaian media world!), will pretend not to see, is Ghana's ruling elites' adopting their business as usual strategies in which they deploy their favourite get-rich-quick tactic: the leveraging of insider-information-for-a-privileged-few to enable them to milk the climate change funding bone-dry with impunity  and get away with it successfully.

How many of the teeming young hawkers in urban Ghana, for example (now being so callously deprived of the opportunity to earn the little income they make to survive on!), are being informed by the Ghanaian media about the many income-generation opportunities in rural Ghana made possible by the long-term support being provided by a number of wealthy nations, such as Japan and Germany, to help Ghana's fight against climate change, in the safeguarding of existing forest reserves and other protected areas; the replanting of trees in degraded forests; and the establishment of new protected areas and new tree-plantations?

Above all, what are those who rule our nation, doing to ensure that the FC (with the help of the more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media!) disseminates, and as widely as possible, all the relevant information about the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries, otherwise known as the "REDD+"?

Do our rulers not see that by ring-fencing such funds and making them available directly to rural people engaged in climate change amelioration activities, rural Ghana can be transformed in a relatively short period of time?

If they empowered rural people, through the capacity-building provided by the Forest Services Division of the FC, and also made the Rural Enterprises Project (REP) and the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) work closely with the FC in that regard, will that not bring about an opportunity to create some real wealth in rural Ghana for a change, and reverse the rural-urban drift at the same time?

And finally, by ring-fencing and making available for sustainable rural economic development, all the payments made to Ghana, by wealthy developed nations for forest protection in our country, and the creation of new protected forest areas, as part of those rich nations' LCDS, would our rulers not ensure that the quality of life in rural Ghana improves dramatically?

And will that not redound to the benefit of our homeland Ghana's continued stability by helping to make it a relatively fairer society - instead of the present outrage of their tolerating the scandal of the situation in which such funds are allowed to be hijacked by our ever-so-clever educated urban elite: with the active connivance of elements within the FC? Surely, that is the real scandal in the FC, which they must deal with - and quickly too?