A Ghanaian timber trader is threatening to take the country’s Forestry Commission (FC) to court for breach of contract unless it pays US$164,000 compensation to the company.
Takoradi-based NAK Timbers claims that the FC breached an agreement signed in 2000, which granted the company a forestry concession area as compensation for wrongfully being accused of illegal logging.
NAK Timbers says it found out that part of the concession in Tarkwa district actually belonged to another timber company. When it tried to extract logs, FC officials stopped NAK’s operations, saying the land belonged to a rival firm.
NAK, which also argues that stumpage fees are too high in the concession area, says it has been unable to supply logs to overseas partners because of the situation.
The company was originally accused of illegal logging in 1998 and had five truckloads of timber confiscated. NAK was later cleared of any wrongdoing, but the impounded logs had already been auctioned off and the company had suffered negative press in the national media.
