Trucks loaded with rosewoods impounded at Damongo

• The trucks have been parked whiles the drivers are assisting in investigation

• Government says it is committed to dealing with the rosewood menace

Two trucks loaded with rosewoods were on Sunday, June 27, 2021, impounded at Damongo in the Savannah Region.

In a successful operation conducted by the anti-rosewood taskforce, the trucks with registration numbers GE-6517-X and GX-8801-X were arrested.

GhanaWeb understands that the trucks have been parked at office of the Forestry Commission in the Savannah Regions.

The two drivers and other occupants of the vehicles are also in the grips of the police, assisting in investigations.

Despite the ban on the felling and sale of rosewoods, some persons remain unrepentant in their resolve to make a fortune out of it.

Samuel Abu Jinapor, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources in April 2021, said that his ministry will not tolerate the actions of such person.

He vowed to strengthen and resource the institutions under his ministry to arrest persons found culpable of engaging in rosewood.

“The people who are behind the illicit trade find a mechanism to get people to front for them to buy the wood and they end up being exported.”

In light of that, he suggested that the disposal of rosewood when they are confiscated be interrogated, because if not done “we will have a problem.”

He added: “The law which amended the disposal of equipment used in small scale mining, we probably should look at that. Which is that when equipment used in illegal mining are confiscated, by law those equipment cannot be auctioned to private individuals.

“They have to be allocated to public institutions. So, the excavator parked, I have no legal right to auction them to a private individual so that the owner cannot find front to participate in auctioning to buy the excavator and turn around to sell it to them.”