The number of infections had reduced, consequential effects of Covid-19 pandemic on businesses continue to persist, hence players in the forestry industry are calling for government assistance.

According to the industry players, Covid-19 has affected public wellness enormously and continues to create unparalleled disruptions to economies and labour markets, including workers and enterprises in the forest sector.

In Ghana, the Covid-19 pandemic has presented immense immediate and medium-term impacts on forest-related supply chains businesses.

This challenge is a combination of stagnating production, reduced demand, shortages of raw materials, lack of working capital, freight rate increases and, in some cases, labour shortages, had forced many operations to halt their activities, some permanently.

Meanwhile, the sector contributes about 200 million euros annually to Ghana’s export income and an estimated 120 million euros of cash flow from the domestic market and provides employment opportunities to an estimated 300,000 Ghanaians.

Companies depend on the industry as means reaching their social and corporate responsibilities by investing heavily in bridging the infrastructure gap in their areas of operations by construction and development of schools, hospitals, road networks, and investment into rural projects that sustain the livelihood of forest fringe communities and contributing to rural poverty reduction.

As a result, the industry must be provided with the needed support in order rescue it from further nosedive.

In a statement issued Forestry Industries Association of Ghana headed by Richard Dua Nsenkire proposed solutions on how the challenge should be addressed to reduce the suffering of players and others on the value chain.

“Among the viable remedies, would be issuance of the European Union (EU) Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) license through the implementation of a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) that has been pursued since 2007 by Ghana and the European Union,” he suggested.

He said progress made so far has brought about improved transparency in forest governance with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) playing an astounding role in facilitating the process, as “It has also improved both human and technical capacity and brought more focus on sustainable forest management.

“Others include firm accountability, bureaucratic efficiencies, institutional collaboration, stakeholder participation, and other aspects of good forest governance.”

It is expected that when FLEGT becomes fully operational, FLEGT licensed timber will automatically meet the requirements of the EU Timber Regulation.

 It will, therefore, be exempt from any due diligence assessment process, saving time and money. This should increase EU importer confidence in Ghana’s timber products and make them more attractive than equivalent products without FLEGT licenses.

He said this was necessary because the EU remains a huge market for timber companies and can increase the stream of revenues into the country.

“After thirteen years of implementation, Ghana must strive to see the VPA-FLEGT through. The Private Sector, CSOs, FC [Forestry Commission] have all played critical roles and continue to be instrumental in completing the EU VPA-FLEGT process,” he added “Hopefully, the approved TUCs will be delivered expeditiously to Parliament even if in batches for ratification to be complied with so that the grueling VPA-FLEGT process can be brought to a deserved finality.”

By Akutu Dede Adimer