Apaak snubs invitation to testify before rosewood committee

Member of Parliament for Builsa South, Dr Clement Apaak has declined an invitation from the committee tasked to investigate the illegal smuggling of rosewood.

The MP has been on a crusade against the felling and exportation of the endangered specie.

His campaign has caught the attention of many including the international media.

Government set up a seven-member committee to investigate the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)’s claim of Ghana’s continuous export of rosewood despite a ban.

The report said, there are powerful Chinese investors who are still harvesting and exporting the banned wood with the help of some members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

However, an attempt to have the minority MP assist the committee has been rejected.

In a reply to the committee chaired by Benito Bio, the Deputy Lands Minister, the minority MP said he will not honor the invitation saying a suspect cannot investigate its own crime.

“I think it is inappropriate to task the same people implicated in the EIA report to look into their own case with the exception of the civil society and business community. The rest [members of the committee] are drawn from the same institutions and entities said to be complicit in the illegal harvesting and export of the rosewood. I, therefore, cannot appear before a suspect serving as his own judge in his own courtroom” he said.