Green Ghana Day: ‘It shouldn’t be an establishment to steal money from the taxpayer’ — Suhuyini

Tamale North Member of Parliament (MP), Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini has expressed his concerns regarding the Green Ghana Day initiative.

He said government must shun corruption and ensure transparency in the implementation of the initiative.

Hon. Suhuyini indicated that such initiatives, although well-intentioned, should not become channels for syphoning state funds.

During his address in Parliament on Friday, June 9, he said, “Initiatives such as this; good as they’re intended do not fall victim to corruption or do not become victim of corruption. It does not become an establishment that is used to syphon money from the taxpayer.”

The Tamale North MP urged the government to establish robust strategies to ensure that funds allocated for climate change are used effectively.

“Mr. Speaker, this is important because climate finance has to be optimised for impact and effectiveness and the way to do that is to ensure that strategies are put in place to change finance and to ensure that finance that is meant for climate change and its mitigation and its adaptation are not misapplied and also give us less optimal value,” Suhuyini said.

He further raised questions about the number of trees planted indicating that the President and Minister quoted conflicting figures.

He also referred to the President's State of the Nation Address (SONA) in 2022, where it was announced that 7 million trees had been successfully planted as part of the Green Ghana Day initiative, exceeding the initial target by 2 million trees.

He noted that during a session in the house, the sector Minister reported that only around 4.9 million trees had been planted.

“The President in 2022 in his SONA address revealed to this house that they had successfully planted 7 million trees, 2 million more than it was initially planned to be planted. However, the Minister, weeks earlier in an answer to a question in this same house, reported that only about 4.9 million trees were planted,” he intimated.

Raising a pertinent question, Hon. Suhuyini sought clarification on the actual number of trees that were planted and the exact amount of resources allocated to the tree-planting campaign.

'Mr Speaker, the question therefore is, how many trees indeed were planted and how much did we throw at the plantation of these trees,”