The national treasurer of the Ghana Timber Association (GTA), Mr. Isaac Kofi Nketiah has appealed for a move to amend Regulation 23 of the Legislative Instrument 1649.

Making the appeal to the minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, Prof. Dominic Fobih and the board of the Forestry Commission FC, he urged that they initiate this amendment to include the payment of stumpage fees before evacuation of felled logs.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Chronicle at his office in Takoradi yesterday, Mr. Nketiah said timber companies and sawn millers in the country owed the government in the payment of stumpage fees in excess of ¢70 billion, which could have been used to carry out development projects in the country.

He attributed this unfortunate situation to the apparent flaws in the current LI that allowed the evacuation of the logs when the stumpage fees had not been paid.

LI 1649 Regulation 23 states that, no logs shall be lifted from its stump unless its measurements had been taken and actual stumpage fees payable calculated by the district forestry officer.

According to him, under regulation 24 of the same LI, it has been stated that no log shall be moved without a conveyance certificate.

Nketiah contended that because regulation 23 did not say that stumpage fees must be paid immediately it was calculated by the district forestry officer, conveyance is issued and the logs are carried away whereas the cost of the trees had not been paid for.

He argued that most of the timber men did not bother to pay stumpage fees after they had been allowed to convey the logs away and this had resulted in the over ¢70 billion debt that the timber men owed the government.

He alerted that the figure would keep on going up if the current laws were not reviewed.

Nketiah wondered how the government could pay royalties to the stool that owned the lands on which these logs were felled, if the stumpage fees were not paid by the timber companies and the sawn millers.

The GTA national treasurer told The Chronicle that if his advice was heeded by the minister and the board of the FC for, there must be provisions in the new law that would severely punish any Technical Officer (TO) of the forestry service division that issued conveyance certificate for the evacuation of the logs without the payment of stumpage fees.

He contended that if the Timber Company or the sawn miller had the capacity to mobilize the necessary inputs like fuel, machinery and personnel to the site to fell the trees, then he must have the capacity also to pay the necessary stumpage fees before the logs are evacuated.

Mr. Nketiah added that his suggestion would as well help the government curb the malpractices in the timber industry.

It would be recalled that early this year, the FC threatened to publish in the dailies the names of all the timber men that owed the government in payment of stumpage fees. The Ghana Timber Association however did not take kindly to the decision and went to court over the issue. Later, the sector minister, Prof. Dominic Fobih had to intervene for an amicable settlement of the case out of court.

Latest investigations revealed that the GTA took the action because of their belief that it was not their fault that they owed stumpage fees. The Chronicle learnt that most of the timber men give their concessions to timber millers to fell trees in them through the use of the former’s property mark.

It was gathered that because of the use of their property marks, the timber men are charged the stumpage fees which otherwise should have been paid by the sawn miller that felled the trees.

The latter also escapes the payment because he is allowed to evacuate the felled logs and pay for the stumpage fees a month later, which they fail to do in most of the cases.

This system, Mr. Nketiah stressed, must be scrapped.

Source:  The Ghanaian Chronicle