Former President Jerry John Rawlings has accused Politicians in officialdom of protecting “criminals” who are “butchering” trees of several decades old to pave way for real estates, thus turning the national capital into a "jungle of nonsense."

"Are we crazy as a people?" Mr Rawlings asked when he spoke to the association of nurses and midwives who paid a courtesy call on him last week.

In his view, foreigners are gaining the gusto in destroying Ghana’s environment because they have realised that Ghanaians themselves are also destroying their own environment.

"Why do you think a lot of these foreigners are destroying your environment," and polluting streams "in the gold mining areas?" He wondered.

"Too much damage," Mr Rawlings yelled.

According to him, politicians are also protecting “criminals” who are decimating the greenery of the national capital, Accra.

"I think the whole of Accra is becoming like what I call a jungle of brick sheet houses – people are just butchering trees that their fathers and grandfathers planted, meanwhile at their level, we sit in their air-condition cars, in their air-condition offices, in their air-condition homes, and we forget that 70, 80, 85, 90 percent of the population is walking through the hot blazing African Sun, and no trees, and we just butcher the trees and we just build our jungle of nonsense: people want to deal with it, instead of politicians standing by it, enforcing the law, they are rather protecting these criminals," the former President said.