The Forestry Commission (FC) has dismissed an international report that indicted it for issuing timber logging permits illegally. The International natural resource watchdog, Global Witness revealed in a report that the Commission is issuing permits outside the 1998 Timber Resources Management law that governs timber logging in Ghana. The report released on Tuesday, received considerable international media coverage but the Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission, Mr Samuel Afari Dartey, told Joy News the claims in the report are entirely false. “The Forestry Commission has not…given out any leases since the coming into force of the Act 547,” he stressed. Mr Dartey explained that all existing leases date as far back as twenty years ago. He has challenged anyone with evidence contrary to this assertion to “bring it for further interrogation”. He says the author of the Global Witnes report, Mr David Young, unjustifiably targeted the Commission because he was previously denied a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) contract with the Commission. Ghana entered the VPA with the European Union (EU) as a way to combat illegal logging and contribute to sustainable forestry management.