The Ogun State Ministry of Forestry said it has put in place measures to crackdown on issues of illicit activities on the illegal logging in the state.
The Commissioner for forestry, Hon. Tunji Akinosi disclosed this today during the 2021 Productivity Enhancement Retreat program tagged "Managing Ogun Forests Resources For Sustainable development, growth and revenue Enhancement" held in Abeokuta the state capital.
Akinosi hinted that the illegal logging has been a challenge for the ministry in previous years saying that he has been trying to reduce it in the last one year.
The Commissioner explained that the retreat program was organised to rub-mind together with the staff in the ministry and the forest reserve to ensure that good results is achieved.
According to him "We are here today to first thank our staff, both the ones at the ministry and the reserved for the job they did in year 2020 despite the pandemic, we call them in because in the ministry of forestry there was no break and we are able to achieve what we achieved.
"We have call them for a retreat this time to rub-mind together as to have what to do better in 2021"
"We have a daunting task to replant the forest which have not been done in so many years, we are also having a revenue edge that is beyond the 100% of what we did in 2020, so we've come to seat together to know where the challenges are and know how we are going to achieve the results."
"Illegality in the forest in Nigeria started long in 1908 and we are trying to reduce in the last one year and that was what showed up our own revenue base, we had so many arrest and so many fines are paid into the covers of the government."
"For this year, we have agreed among ourselves and the staff that will be going a little bit further aside making arrest and fining people, we are going to decide another means in reducing the illegality and we assured that at the end of the year we would have achieve so much, the commissioner said.
On his parts, the Chairman, Forestry Association of Nigeria, Ogun State chapter Dr Kayode Ogunjobi commended the ministry for the initiative saying that the it is a good aim towards engineering the Forestry sector in the state to effective service delivery.
His words "I want to commend the ministry for this initiative,it is a good one, an effort in the right direction, aim towards engineering the forestry sector in the state to effective service delivery.
"Let me also thank the Governor for approving this kind of retreat for the people, it is an opportunity to learn and unlearn so that we know that which is wrong that we are doing and also we ensure we do what is right in this new year and do what is right for our forest and also make sure we don't loose revenue."
"It is an established fact that our forest in Ogun State even before this administration has some issues in terms of illegal actions and illegal dealings we have established a fact that it will take strong political will for all this stop, it is beyond rethorics but action for it to stop"
"We thank the government for putting mechanism in place to curtail all this, we are believing that in this new year this mechanism put in place to curtail this illegal activities ranging from cocoa farming, illegal tree felling and illegal dwellers will curtail them, Dr Ogunjobi said.
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