GH₵42 million released for Youth in Afforestation beneficiaries

The Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John, says an amount of GH₵21 million has been disbursed to beneficiaries of the Youth in Afforestation programme.

This comes on the back of protest by some employees of the programme who stormed the premises of the Forestry Commission on Tuesday to demand their unpaid accumulated allowances.

But according to Sir John, the Commission has since April been paying the allowances of the beneficiaries and that another GH₵21 million will be paid by Friday.

“I can report that, conferring with the banks, the monies have been paid but there are a few who are still in the process of being paid. We’ve spoken with GCB Bank and they confirmed that the monies have gone,” he said in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM.

“I believe that by close of the day today [Wednesday], all of them will have their allowances paid. That also includes not only the August allowance by the July allowances.  In a weeks’ time, another money will hit their account and I can assure you that they will also be laughing all the way to the bank so we all celebrate this yuletide,” he added.

Admitting that some of the employees’ allowances were still outstanding, Mr Owusu Afriyie noted that, “all those people whose records are okay and genuine, they certainly have not had any challenges.”