The Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, responsible for Lands and Forestry, Benito Owusu-Bio, has debunked claims circulating in the media space about the government’s unpaid debt of 2.3 billion dollars to Green Ghana Seedling providers after the planting exercises.

Addressing the media on a site monitoring tour of some Green Ghana seedlings planted in selected areas of Accra, on Tuesday, March 28, 2023, Mr. Owusu-Bio stressed that “there is no such thing as 2.5 billion in debt, even the funds allocated by the government for Green Ghana were not that much. What we actually owe our seedlings providers is an amount of 28million Ghana cedis which will soon be cleared”

He assured the seedling suppliers that negotiations with the Finance Ministry to settle any bills owed by Green Ghana were already under way and that he would personally see to it that they went through as quickly as possible.

Additionally, he gave the citizens of Ghana and tax payers the assurance that all funds used to purchase Green Ghana seedlings had been wisely spent because the majority of the seedlings planted during the 2021–2022 Green Ghana planting activities are still alive.

“Earlier, we disclosed a survival rate of 80% however due to weather conditions and other factors, currently seedlings planted in 2021 have a survival rate of 67% and 2022 a 72% survival and that is good progress because no matter what, we will not be able to achieve a 100% survival rate”

Mr. Benito expressed his admiration for the Forestry Commission for ensuring that Foresters raised the Green Ghana seedlings to this stage of maturity and expressed his satisfaction with how well the seedlings had developed thus far.

The Deputy Minister also called on everyone to join the fray and plant the 10 million seedlings planned to be planted this year to assist in fighting climate change. He also asked Ghanaians who had planted seedlings in their homes and farms to make an effort to nurture the seedlings to maturity.

Monitoring, according to Hon. Benito, is a component of the buildup of events leading up to Green Ghana Day, which will once again take place on June 9, 2023.

Before moving on to the Achimota Forest, Achimota Secondary School, and the JJ Rawlings Foundation guardianship inside the Achimota School, the team on the monitoring trip stopped at the Seismic Centre at the Ghana Geological Survey in Achimota.

Hugh C. A. Brown, the Director of the Forestry Services Division at the Forestry Commission, Mr. Sulemana Nyadia, the Technical Director for Forestry at the Ministry, Mr. Joseph Osiakwan, and other representatives from the Ministry and the Commission accompanied the Deputy Minister on this tour.