‘Probe allocation of timber rights’

Back Page lead
31-10-08

FIFTEEN timber companies operating in the country have called for investigations into the allocation of timber rights by the Forestry Commission.
The companies made the call as a result of what they claimed was the illegal deals being carried out by the commission in the allocation of timber rights.
The companies are In God’s Service Company Limited, Aframco Limited, Carlnormal Limited, House of Kay, Unclewad Company Limited, Tiger Exports Limited, Talento Limited and Belltop Company Limited.
The rest are Isbeg Company Limited, Ghana Tropical Limited, Nkebright Agencies, B.MS. Limited, Engineering and Technical Limited, Jeewap Company Limited and Alacraty International.
Addressing the press in Accra yesterday, the spokesperson of the aggrieved companies, Mr Bright Nkeyasen, said the Forestry Commission had allocated plantations to more than 40 companies illegally at the price of GH¢140.00, 50 per cent less than the prices won during the bidding for the plantations.
Some foreign companies, he alleged, had been allocated plantations/lots without due process, which required that there should be competitive bidding.
“The Ghana-Ivory Coast boundary trees were also allocated illegally to only two companies at GH¢ 95.00 per cubic metre. Total volume of these materials illegally allocated at cheap prices amounted to over 100,000 cubic metres of plantation timber all going to the world markets,” he alleged.
He said such acts of sabotage undermined the letter and spirit of the competitive bidding process thereby making “those of us who won the lots/plantations legally uncompetitive on the world markets”.
Mr Nkeyasen said in 2003, the government enacted a law that regulated timber allocation in the country, and that the law brought sanity and fairness into timber allocation, saying that the Law, LI 1721, spelt out general procedures for allocation of timber rights.
To pre-qualify to enter into the bidding process, companies had to be registered in accordance with the law of the country, meet all tax obligations and must not be indebted to the commission.
The 15 companies, he said, were the bid winners of the 2007 competitive bidding organised by the Forestry Commission, and that 24 lots or plantations were advertised for pre-qualification.
Mr Nkeyasen explained that after the pre-qualification process, as “we prepare for the actual bidding, three big lots were removed from the list namely lots 4, 8 and 10, totalling 35,000 cubic metres.
“When we asked why these three lots were removed from the list, Forestry Commission reply was that they were not going to sell them due to environmental and security concerns,” he said.
He explained further that prices won for the lots/plantations ranged between GH¢250 and GH¢350 per cubic metre, bringing the total price for the remaining 23 lots to GH¢ 23,958,392, and that two weeks after the competitive bidding, “the three lots which were removed from the list due to environmental and security reasons, were allocated to a foreign company based in Singapore at the price GH¢140.00 per cubic metre, which is less than 50 per cent of prices won at the bidding, without passing through competitive bidding process as required by law”.
Mr Nkeyasen also called on the government to revoke all illegal licence and permits issued by the commission.