Deputy Ranking Member of the Parliamentary Lands and Forestry Committee, Alhassan Suhuyini, says a number of targets for the Green Ghana Project have not been met.

According to him, during the project's launch in 2021, the Minister indicated that the initiative would be primarily driven by the private sector, with annual funding sourced from private donations.

Mr Suhuyini highlighted that a committee was established to oversee the mobilization of these private-sector funds.

However, he pointed out a lack of accountability and transparency in this area, raising questions about the committee's effectiveness in securing the necessary financial support for the project.

Speaking on the JoyNews' AM Show, Mr Suhuyini stated, “What we do know as members of the lands and forestry committee, however, is that the government continues to pump in millions and millions of Ghana cedis every year to support this program.

“Now, I am of the view that it lacks transparency because you started with a very interesting question. ‘How do you count the 41 million trees planted, and how are you able to determine how many of those trees have actually survived over the period?’

“That is a difficult thing to do, especially when the ministry doesn't seem to be minded to put in place a structure or a process to make it easy for us to verify how many trees are actually planted yearly and how many have survived?”

The Member of Parliament for Tamale North revealed that committee members have requested data from the Ministry to conduct their own assessment of the Green Ghana Project.

Mr Suhuyini emphasised that, with access to this data, the committee could travel across the country to evaluate the project's impact firsthand.

 “The ministry continues to promise to give us that data but has not been forthcoming with the data but you see, what is obvious in the implementation is that one, we do not know how contracts for the supply of seedlings are awarded.

"What we hear around the corridors of power, at the Ministry, and at the Forestry Commission is that these contracts are just handed over to people without any competitive bidding at sometimes fantastic prices. Inflated prices. And so it would be important for us to find out how these seedlings contractors are selected and how the contractors are awarded,” he noted.