The Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, has seized over seven articulated trucks loaded with large quantities of illegal chainsaw lumber.
The illegal lumber was headed for neighboring Burkina Faso, but was intercepted in the Wenchi district on the Wenchi-Wa highway in the Brong Ahafo Region.
The Minister and members of the Regional Security Council (REGSEC), seized the trucks reportedly carrying about 2,400 lumber, as they returned to Sunyani from Banda Ahenkro on a fact-finding mission, and to restore calm in that area following recent threats of attacks on non-indigenes.
The trucks impounded include; 6 DAF and MAN Diesels with registration numbers AW 5459-11, PS 422-W, 32HL 4431, 11 H2768 and GT 4279-V.
They were suspected to have engaged in the illegal act at Deaba, a farming community in the Asunafo South District, and they decided to outwit security agencies by using Dormaa- Sampa- Nsawkaw road through Banda Ahenkro, where they were to join the Wenchi-Wa highway to Burkina Faso at Tinga junction.
Luck however eluded them when REGSEC and the Minister intercepted the trucks based on suspicion considering the quantity of lumber that was being transported.
The Regional Minister in an interview with the media on the matter lamented the rate at which the region’s forest cover was being depleted, and pledged his outfit’s readiness to put a stop to the act he described as “criminal”.
He said he will set up a task-force to monitor the activities of illegal loggers.
The truck drivers upon interrogation, admitted carting the lumber from Deaba in the Asunafo South District for a Burkinabe contractor with invoices that under declared the cost of the wood.
Brong Ahafo Regional Police Commander, DCOP Kwame Techi- Poku, has since ordered the trucks be impounded and kept at the Wenchi Police command for further investigations together with the Forestry Commission in Sunyani.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
