The Director of the Faculty of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), Professor Emmanuel Kwesi Aning, has said the discussion on the effects of the deeds of Aisha Huang and her cousin, Helena, on Ghana’s environment should not be limited to galamsey.
According to him, the value of rosewood the duo have transported beyond the shores of the country since 2012 is six (6) million trees orchestrated by a “a massive institutionalized timber trafficking scheme enabled by high level corruption and collusion allowed it to take place”.
He blames the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) for looking on for such volumes of rosewood to be transported out of the country the galamsey the Aisha especially, has been doing to cause havoc to Ghana’s environment.
“We need to look at this conversation in a systematic manner. Mining is one bit and I want to go back to my point about existential threat and the way we need elevate all kinds of activities that are interlinked but seemingly separate from the Ghanaian side but from the Chinese side are interlinked and are not wholly innocent.
“We are now talking about Aisha Huang but that is only one part of the puzzle that as Ghanaians we need to unravel. When we take rosewood ‘Since 2012 over 540,000 tons of rosewood equivalent to 23,474 20-foot containers or approximately 6 million trees were illegally harvested and imported into China from Ghana while bans on harvest and trade were in place” and the report concluded that this has been possible because ‘a massive institutionalized timber trafficking scheme enabled by high level corruption and collusion allowed it to take place’.”
“Now the Chinese person who was involved is called either Huang Yan Feng but also known as Helena Huang characterized as the queen of rosewood. We know from Sir John’s alleged Will what he gained as head of Forestry Commission. When you have specialized forensic teams concluding a report looking into only one economic endeavor of institutionalised trafficking scheme enabled by high level corruption and collusion, then we need a systematic and institutionalised approach to this. Looking at the network, so here we are talking about the harbours –Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority,” he told Alfred Ocansey on TV3’s The Key Points, Saturday, September 10, 2022.
By Felix Anim-Appau|Onuaonline.com
