Green Ghana Project: Over 90% of seedlings die in communities in Upper East

About 90 per cent of seedlings planted in some part of the Upper East Region under the Green Ghana Project have failed to survive, a Daily Graphic investigation has found.

A field tour of selected project sites, five years after the initiative was launched, revealed startling cases of seedling mismanagement, poor planting practices, and an overall lack of capacity to execute a project meant to make Ghana Green.

Contrary to claims by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources that 60-80 per cent of the seedlings survived, independent checks by the Daily Graphic show that of 1,900 seedlings planted in three communities in the Upper East Region under the Green Ghana Project, only 143 survived, representing a 7.5% survival rate.

Background

In 2021, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources (MLNR) launched the Green Ghana Project, a national tree-planting initiative to restore depleted forest cover and combat deforestation.

Beyond restoring vegetation, the initiative also aimed to boost local economies and create livelihood opportunities for communities, particularly by engaging Local Seedling Suppliers (LSSs).

Between 2021 and 2024, the project targeted about 50 million trees and planted about 52 million trees at a cost of approximately GH¢226 million, according to the Auditor-General’s report (Page 2).

The seedlings were planted in designated areas, including degraded forest reserves, mined-out areas, communal lands and woodlots, as well as schools, road medians, homes and churches.

The tree species included teak, shea, mahogany, Wawa, rosewood, neem, cassia and cashew.

Under the project, the Forestry Commission was responsible for the implementation, with personnel under the Youth in Afforestation and Reforestation Programme (YAP) being deployed for planting and maintenance activities.

However, several concerns were raised about the project’s implementation, particularly seedling survival, post-planting maintenance, monitoring and seedling procurement.

To establish whether the project was achieving its stated objectives, the Daily Graphic reviewed official records and documents, including Forestry Commission data and the Auditor-General’s Performance Audit Report on the Management of the Green Ghana Project, 2021–2024.

The investigation also involved field visits to selected planting sites in the Upper East Region, where the reporter, with the assistance of YAP personnel, physically counted surviving seedlings and compared the findings with available official records.

Interviews were conducted with Forestry Commission officials, YAP supervisors, farmers, community leaders and residents to establish how the seedlings were planted, the factors that affected their survival and aspects of the procurement process.

For many years, severe rainstorms and prolonged dry spells have damaged homes and disrupted livelihoods in Zanlerigu and other communities in the Upper East Region.

Like many parts of northern Ghana, the area has a largely sparse vegetation cover, offering limited protection from strong winds and leaving the soil exposed to erosion.

So, when the government rolled out the initiative in 2021, residents saw it as an opportunity to address some of these long-standing environmental challenges.

They, therefore, actively participated in the tree-planting exercise, hoping the seedlings would grow into trees and restore the degraded vegetation cover.

However, five years on, that hope is gradually fading as many of the seedlings planted across the communities have failed to survive.

When the Daily Graphic visited some planted sites in the Upper East Region, it observed that many seedlings had died, with only a few surviving at some locations.

Among the tree species planted were neem, shea, cassia, eucalyptus, mahogany, teak, guava and cashew.

Some seedlings were distributed to residents to plant on their farms and in their surroundings, while others were planted by personnel recruited under the YAP.

Records provided by the YAP supervisor at Zanlerigu in the Nabdam District, Albert Abaka, showed that 500 seedlings were planted across various locations in the community in 2021.

Of that number, 444 were planted at Kasog-Dabog, a site earmarked for a new community senior high school.

However, during a field visit, the reporter, with the assistance of YAP personnel, physically counted one surviving seedling at Kasog-Dabog, two at the Catholic Church and another at the Zanlerigu Health Centre, bringing the total number of surviving seedlings to four.

Mr Abaka, who supervised 73 workers planting the seedlings, attributed the poor survival rate to extreme weather conditions and poor planting practices.

He said the farmers were not briefed before the planting exercise began, particularly on which species to plant on their farms.

“In some of the areas, when we returned the next day to water the plants, some farmers had uprooted the kapok trees we planted.

They told us that those species of trees were not suitable for their farms and that they were never consulted by anybody before the planting.

Some of the seedlings also died the next day because of the heat at the time.

There was no rain,” he explained.

A farmer at Zalerigu, Albert Abugre, said he was not properly briefed about the entire project, adding, “I later saw that they had planted some on my piece of land, but I didn’t like such species, so I decided to cut them off to make way for my farming activities”.

He added that the YAP personnel also stopped watering the seedlings because they were not regularly paid their allowances.

“We stopped watering because we could not continue spending our own resources. When payment finally came after about a month, and we returned, virtually all the seedlings had died,” he added.

The situation was not different at Tong Wakii in the Talensi District, where only about 39 tree seedlings survived out of the 700 planted in the community.

The main challenge there was access to water to keep the seedlings alive. According to the YAP Supervisor in the area, Nyabil Bagnab, no adequate arrangements had been made to provide water to the sites when the rains failed, despite the difficulty in accessing the locations.

He pointed out that “at one point, we planned among ourselves to resist planting unless there was rain, but we had no choice”.

He suggested that future planting be timed properly with the rainy season, or that the government should make adequate arrangements to water the seedlings.

Inconsistent data

Data obtained from the Bolgatanga Zonal Office of the Forestry Commission, which covers the Nabdam, Talensi, Bongo, Bolgatanga East and Bolgatanga Municipal areas, shows that a total of 739,000 seedlings were supplied and planted in both forest and off-forest reserves between 2021 and 2024.

Of the total, 50,000 seedlings were planted in 2021, 204,000 in 2022, 285,000 in 2023, and 200,000 in 2024.

According to the commission, the average survival rate of the seedlings in the zone was between 45 and 50 per cent, based on the post-planting surveys.

Although the commission admitted that the average survival rate was unsatisfactory, on-site verification painted an even bleaker picture that did not support the commission’s data.

For instance, at Zanlerigu, the commission’s records indicated that 48 per cent of the 500 seedlings planted in 2021 had survived.

That figure, however, contrasts sharply with the situation observed at the Kasog-Dabog school site, where only one of the 444 seedlings planted was found alive during the visit.

At Bongo Soe, where the commission found that only a few of the 700 seedlings survived, it had no survival data.

Similarly, at Tong Wakii, the Commission also had no survival figure.

However, a physical count found 39 surviving trees out of 700 planted.

Poor planting practices

Across the sites visited, the investigation found lapses in implementing and monitoring the tree-planting exercise.

Beyond the destruction of seedlings by livestock, bushfires, and drought, significant gaps remained in the records available for the exercise.

In some cases, the figures provided by the Forestry Commission did not correspond with what was found on the ground, raising questions about the accuracy of the monitoring and survival figures reported for the project.

The Bolgatanga Zonal Manager of the Forestry Commission, Felix Amoah, acknowledged that although some species performed well, prolonged drought, bushfires, animal grazing, poor post-planting management and resistance from some farmers to certain tree species were major factors that undermined the success of the tree-planting exercise.

The Assembly Member for the Bongo Soe Electoral Area, Phillip Atiah Ataba, corroborated that “the trees were planted in open areas. Livestock easily fed on the seedlings because there was no protection. Bushfires also destroyed many of them”.

A-G’s findings

Beyond restoring vegetation, the initiative also aimed to boost local economies and create livelihood opportunities for communities, particularly by engaging LSSs to supply seedlings for the nationwide tree-planting exercise.

However, the Auditor-General’s Performance Audit Report on the Management of the Green Ghana Project, 2021–2024, also raised concerns about seedling procurement, value for money, the treatment of Local Seedling Suppliers, and planning for seedling survival.

The audit found that the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources (MLNR) moved away from LSSs in 2023 and 2024 and procured about 11.1 million seedlings from Richie Plantations Limited through a single-source procurement process.

In a letter dated March 2, 2023, the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) granted the ministry approval to single-source the supply and delivery of seedlings from Richie Plantations Limited under a framework agreement covering the period from June 2021 to December 2024.

The Auditor-General subsequently raised concerns about whether the arrangement guaranteed value for money.

The audit found that the Forestry Commission’s approved prices for seedlings supplied through LSSs ranged from GH¢0.50 to GH¢1.50 per seedling, whereas Richie Plantations supplied the seedlings at an average cost of GH¢9.50 each.

The figure comprised an average purchase price of GH¢5.50 and a fixed transportation cost of GH¢4.

On page 22 of the Auditor-General’s Performance Audit Report on the Management of the Green Ghana Project, the Auditor-General stated that the government spent GH¢105.76 million on approximately 11.1 million seedlings supplied by Richie Plantations for the 2023 and 2024 editions.

Had the seedlings been procured through LSSs at the approved prices, the report said the cost would have been about GH¢11.13 million, resulting in potential savings of GH¢94.63 million.

The report noted that the ministry had not fully settled 734 Local Seedling Suppliers for seedlings supplied in 2021 and 2022, leading to the decision not to engage them in subsequent years.

According to the report, the suppliers had provided 16,104,911 seedlings, with an outstanding amount of approximately GH¢39.55 million.

Procurement process

However, Richie Plantations has rejected any suggestion that it procured its seedlings at an unjustifiably high price, simply because the company charged more than the Forestry Commission’s approved prices for Local Seedling Suppliers.

The General Manager of Richie Plantations, Beatrice Efua Nsiah, said the company’s seedlings met specifications agreed with the Ministry and that the procurement process considered factors beyond the basic seedling price.

“Our seedlings are of good quality. Whatever we sold to the Ministry, that is what they wanted, and that is what they bought,” she said.

She further clarified that the company was contracted solely to supply the seedlings and was not responsible for maintaining them after delivery or plantation.

According to her, any comparison between the cost of Richie Plantations’ seedlings and those supplied by LSSs should consider differences in specifications and quality.

“If you are just looking at the amount involved and saying that Forestry Commission’s price is cheaper and Richie Plantations is expensive, you are not being fair to the company because you have not stated any factors and you have not given us the reason why you are saying that,” Ms Nsiah stressed.

Management response

On March 31, 2026, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, in a letter signed by the Chief Director, Innocent Marcus Haligah, disputed several aspects of the audit.

On seedling numbers and procurement costs, he said the Forestry Commission had a combined target of 45 million seedlings between 2021 and 2024 but ultimately distributed and planted 57 million seedlings, with seven million planted in 2021, 26 million in 2022, 13 million in 2023 and 11 million in 2024.

The letter disputed the prices cited in the audit, saying the Forestry Commission’s approved seedling prices ranged from GH¢1.50 to GH¢5, while the price of stumps was GH¢0.50.

It also questioned the Auditor-General’s reference to about 103 million seedlings acquired from Richie Plantations for 2023 and 2024, saying the figure seemed high given that the entire programme targeted 45 million seedlings and the Commission distributed and planted 57 million.

The Management further said the Public Procurement Authority had approved a maximum price of GH¢6 per seedling, not GH¢9.50, as stated in the audit report, explaining “the approved price took into account the quality of the seedlings, transportation and direct delivery to planting sites”

On the decision to discontinue the use of LSSs, it said the Ministry was unable to engage them after 2022 because of outstanding debts from the 2021 and 2022 programmes and limited budgetary support from the Ministry of Finance.

This created a significant gap in seedling supply during the planting season.

According to management, Richie Plantations was subsequently contacted to supply the seedlings needed to prevent the Green Ghana Project from failing, as it had already secured PPA approval to raise seedlings for afforestation and reforestation programmes.

Additionally, management acknowledged that plans had been prepared, but funds were not released for post-planting maintenance activities.

The Forestry Commission therefore assigned some Youth in Afforestation and Reforestation Programme beneficiaries to undertake maintenance.

“Due to the fact that the YAP beneficiaries had their allowances in arrears, their numbers reduced significantly. All these contributed to the inadequate maintenance of the planted seedlings,” it added.

The management maintained that the Green Ghana Project recorded an overall survival rate of between 62 and 82 per cent, saying, “For any tree planting globally, attaining such a percentage rate is a significant achievement”.

However, management acknowledged the challenges that bedevilled the project’s implementation and said it would take proactive measures in subsequent projects to strengthen post-planting maintenance, monitoring, and other interventions to improve seedling survival.

Decline

When contacted to respond to the findings of the investigation, the Technical Director of Forestry at the MLNR, Joseph Osiakwan, said the issues raised were among those discussed with the Audit Team during an exit conference and that the Ministry had already responded to them through a management response letter.

He, however, expressed concern about the circulation of what he described as the draft report on social media, saying he deemed it “very mischievous and in bad faith.”

Mr Osiakwan directed the researcher to the Internal Audit Unit of the MLNR on the findings. However, the Internal Audit Unit declined to comment on the investigation’s findings.

Way forward

Based on the field findings and the issues raised in the Auditor-General’s report, it is clear that the project failed to achieve its intended objective.

FC officials and the Ministry’s response have acknowledged the challenges that bedevilled the project’s implementation, including poor post-planting management.

The issues raised in the report should not be swept under the carpet. The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and the Forestry Commission, which spearheaded the project’s execution, must be held accountable for the failures identified.

All those involved in executing the project must be questioned, and where financial losses are established, the monies lost must be recovered.