Sunyani, April 16, GNA - Ms Rebecca Teiko Dottey, National Coordinator of Forest Watch Ghana, a coalition of 30 Non Governmental Organisations, on Tuesday said most timber companies were operating illegally and thus infringing on the access right to timber. The coalition advocates for pro-poor policy changes and social justice in the forestry sector in Ghana. Ms Dottey was speaking on "Natural resources and human rights, forest rights in Ghana", at the close of a two-day workshop organized by Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) in Sunyani.

The national co-ordinator explained that the companies were operating illegally by using a non-commercial instrument called Timber Utilization Permit (TUP), instead of Timber Utilization Contract (TUC), which she said was the right instrument to be used in accessing timber commercially. Ms Dottey added that in 1997 when the law was promulgated, only five out of the 600 existing companies had valid TUCs, saying the Forestry Commission had over the years resumed responsibility of giving out administrative permits that they wrongly referred to as TUPs, without consulting Parliament.

A committee was set up by the Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines last year to probe into the allegations of improper granting of timber rights for felling in a wildlife reserved by the Commission, she said. Touching on benefit sharing rights, Ms. Dottey said communities and local farmers "on whose farms trees are felled do not get any reward for keeping and cultivating trees on their farms". She noted that the government and its structures received more than 70 percent of total revenue whilst chiefs got about 25 percent, adding most farmers were only given compensation, which was woefully inadequate.

"Farmers are cheated because they do not have the right to information and are therefore not aware of the existing laws. Farmers are supposed to give consent before any tree is felled on their farms but this seldom happens because timber companies are not using TUCs" she said. Ms Dottey stated that information on forestry statistics, revenue collection and disbursement, among others, were not available to the public and the little information available was on the Forestry Commission's website, which was mostly inaccessible "considering the fact that most forest fringed community members are computer illiterates". She said the problems in the forest sector included unsustainable logging, low collection of timber fees, lower distribution of benefits accruing from timber, corrupted forestry staff and blatant disregard for the rights of forestry stakeholders.

Ms Jessie Johnston of JHR urged journalists to report more on human abuse stories and to educate the public about their rights and the rights of others. She called on the participants to abide by the code of ethics for journalists so they could respect and not violate the rights of the public.