Forestry Commission to name roundabout after Sir John
The Forestry Commission says it will immortalise the late Chief Executive of the commission, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, by naming a roundabout inside its head office in Accra after him.
It would be christened as the ‘Sir John Roundabout’ after Mr Afriyie who led the Commission from March 2017 until his demise July this year.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Commission, John Allotey told the media during an end-of-year interaction that preliminary work on the project had started.
“The Executive Management Team of the Forestry Commission has approved that the roundabout in front of the Forestry Commission should be refurbished and the bust of the former chief executive officer of the Forestry Commission be placed in the middle to befit his status and the roundabout will be named ‘Sir John Roundabout.’
“We hope that will construct a platform of about the hip level then we will be able to mount the Bust on the platform.”
He said the decision was meant to preserve the legacy of Sir John whose tenure saw the employment of thousands of young people under the Youth in Afforestation programme.
More than 40,000 young people have been employed under the programme to plant over 222 hectares of seedlings planted in the Greater Accra Region alone.
Sites including buffer zones of the Weija Dam – Tomefa, Joma and Agbozume in the Ga South municipality; the Pantang Hospital, Achimota ECO Park and West Africa Senior High School in the Adentan municipality benefitted from the tree planting exercise.
Mr Allotey described his former boss, who was once a General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), as ‘the Peoples’ man’ who provided leadership of vision.
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He is also credited with leading Ghana’s quest to tame deforestation in the country’s savannah region. In December last year, the commission and Greenland Resources AB of Sweden signed a Memorandum of Understanding to formalise their intentions of establishing large-scale forest plantations in the Savannah Region.
Under the project, Greenland Resources AB will establish eucalyptus plantations for pulp and paper production.
Three forest reserves in the Savannah Region—Yakombo, KeniKeni and Yerada forest reserves with a total area of 215,000 hectares have been earmarked for the plantation project.
Mr Allotey, therefore, believed the late Sir John deserved a permanent place in the precincts of the commission as an honour for his good work.
Five months after his death, Mr Afriyie is yet to be buried. While saying he did not have details of the date a funeral would be held, he gave the assurance that the Forestry Commission would play its role to give its former chief executive a befitting farewell.
“We also know that, as has been mentioned, we don’t have the exact details of the burial and funeral arrangement. The family will communicate that in due course,” he added.
Sir John died in Accra on Wednesday, July 1 while receiving treatment at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
He was a lawyer who served the governing party in different capacities and represented the NPP as the General Secretary from 2010 to 2014.
He is remembered for the quote, “Fear delegates”.
Sir John made the comments after he lost the support of the delegates of the party to retain his position as General Secretary.
Sir John attended the University of Ghana and the Ghana School of Law and started practising as a lawyer in 1981.
During the tenure of former President John Agyekum Kufour, he was appointed head of legal services at the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC)
He was later made to act as the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the GNPC.
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