Forestry Minister ‘ill-informed on sectoral issues’

FORESTRY representatives expressed surprise yesterday that Forest Minister Belden Namah was poorly informed about issues involving the sector, despite involvement as a landowner in a newly-declared Forest Management Area.
An industry spokesman said Mr Namah, in a Government radio talkback radio programme last Monday night, had said that the timber royalty rate would soon be increased from K10 per cubic metre to K30.
“He is apparently unaware that the 2007 budget had already increased the royalty rate from K10 to K18 per cubic metre with effect from Jan 1 last year,” the spokesman said.
The head of the National Forest Authority Kanawi Pouru, also participated in the NBC talkback programme.
The spokesman said the “premium levy” announced in the 2007 budget has not been paid to landowners because the Government had decided it would be utilised as “development levies” in the same way that this occurs in the petroleum sector.
“What we would like to know is what has happened to the K21 million that has been collected in the past year from this levy?”
The spokesman said the minister’s proposal to raise the royalty rate to K30 per cubic metre had been raised previously and this was supposed to have involved a study by a committee set up by the National Forestry Board.
“The minister put up a list of six demands last September and the NFB had agreed to look into them and to report back by the end of March,” the source said.
A committee to look into the issue, chaired by the minister’s appointee to the NFB, had failed to hold a single meeting, he said.
The NFB itself is in a state of shambles because the Government had failed to appoint a women’s representative, a landowners’ representative and a community representative as required under current legislation, he said.
There are only five “Government yes men” and a representative of the Forestry Industry Association on the NFB at the moment, the source said.
The sources declined to comment on the suggestion that log exports could be terminated in two years time in favour of 100% processing on grounds this was either a “pipedream” or a plan to end much commercial logging activities in the country.
Because of the log export levy, the Government collects far more revenue from log exports than from processed timber operations, he said.