A staggering GH¢94.6 million could have been saved in the implementation of the Green Ghana Project if the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources (MLNR) had procured seedlings from Local Seedling Suppliers at approved Forestry Commission prices instead of engaging a private company through a single-source procurement arrangement, a new Performance Audit Report by the Auditor-General has revealed.
The findings, contained in the Performance Audit Report on the Management of the Green Ghana Project dated May 7, 2026, raise significant concerns about value for money, procurement transparency, unpaid local suppliers, inadequate monitoring and poor post-planting maintenance under one of Ghana’s flagship environmental programmes.
The report concludes that the Ministry did not effectively manage key aspects of the project and failed to ensure that public resources were used economically.
GH¢105.7m paid instead of GH¢11.1m
According to the audit, the Ministry, through the Operations and Logistics Sub-Committee of the Green Ghana Project, engaged M/s Richie Plantations to supply approximately 11.1 million seedlings for the 2023 and 2024 editions of the project.
The company charged between GH¢9 and GH¢10 per seedling, while approved Forestry Commission prices for similar seedlings ranged between GH¢0.50 and GH¢1.50 per seedling.
The Auditor-General’s analysis showed that for the two-year period, government paid approximately GH¢105.76 million to Richie Plantations for the seedlings.
Had Local Seedling Suppliers (LSSs) been engaged at Forestry Commission-approved prices, the same quantity of seedlings would have cost about GH¢11.13 million, resulting in potential savings of GH¢94.6 million.
GH¢9.5 per seedling accepted over GH¢1 cost
In 2023 alone, the report said, 10.2 million seedlings were procured at a cost of GH¢96.9 million from Richie Plantations at GH¢9.5 per seedling.
Local Seedling Suppliers had offered to provide the same quantity at approximately GH¢10.2 million at GH¢1 per seedling, creating a difference of GH¢86.7 million.
For the 2024 project cycle, the Ministry acquired 932,883 seedlings at a cost of about GH¢8.86 million, compared with an estimated GH¢932,883 if local suppliers had been engaged.
The Auditor-General therefore concluded that there was no assurance that the procurement process adopted by the Ministry guaranteed value for money.
Ministry’s capacity argument challenged
The Ministry defended its decision by arguing that Local Seedling Suppliers lacked the capacity to supply the required quantities for the 2023 and 2024 projects.
However, the Auditor-General disputed that explanation.
The report noted that records from the 2022 Green Ghana Project showed that Local Seedling Suppliers had successfully delivered 17.26 million seedlings, representing about 65% of all seedlings planted that year.
The total number of seedlings targeted for each of the 2023 and 2024 editions was 10 million.
Given that local suppliers had previously delivered substantially larger quantities, the audit concluded that they possessed sufficient capacity to meet the project’s requirements.
The report therefore stated that evidence gathered during interviews and document reviews contradicted the Ministry’s explanation.
Local suppliers owed GH¢39.5m
The audit further revealed that while Local Seedling Suppliers were excluded from the 2023 and 2024 procurement process, government still owed them approximately GH¢39.5 million for seedlings supplied under the 2021 and 2022 Green Ghana Projects.
The Auditor-General observed that one of the project’s objectives was to support local economic development through the engagement of community-based seedling producers.
However, that objective was undermined by both the failure to contract the suppliers and the failure to settle long-standing debts owed to them.
The report warned that continued delays in payment could expose government to additional liabilities through interest charges.
Millions of free seedlings untracked
Beyond procurement concerns, the audit found significant weaknesses in the distribution and monitoring of seedlings.
According to the report, the Forestry Commission distributed large numbers of seedlings free of charge to individuals and institutions without establishing adequate mechanisms to verify whether the seedlings were actually planted.
As a result, authorities were unable to confirm the extent to which the distributed seedlings contributed to the project’s afforestation objectives.
The report noted that the absence of robust tracking systems weakened accountability and made it difficult to assess the true impact of the initiative.
Poor maintenance led to seedling losses
The Auditor-General also identified inadequate post-planting maintenance as a major challenge affecting the project’s success.
The report stated that the Ministry and Forestry Commission failed to sufficiently undertake maintenance activities after planting, leading to significant losses of seedlings across several sites.
The losses, the report said, represented not only wasted financial resources but also a major setback to Ghana’s reforestation and afforestation ambitions.
Audit teams visited 15 forest reserves and 14 off-reserve planting sites across the Northern, Ashanti and Greater Accra regions to verify tree survival rates and assess maintenance conditions. They examined factors such as seedling survival, fire protection measures, maintenance practices and the presence of forest guards.
Green Ghana’s critical importance
The findings come against the backdrop of alarming forest depletion in Ghana.
The report cited data showing that Ghana’s forest cover declined from 8.2 million hectares in 1990 to just 1.6 million hectares in 2021, representing an 80 per cent reduction over three decades.
It also referenced a 2022 report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which indicated that Ghana recorded the world’s largest increase in primary forest loss that year, with approximately 18,000 hectares lost—nearly 70% higher than the previous year.
Between 2021 and 2024, government spent approximately GH¢226 million on the Green Ghana Project and planted about 52 million trees across degraded forest reserves, mined-out lands, water catchment areas, schools, road medians, community parks, churches and private properties.
Auditor-General’s recommendations
To address the shortcomings identified, the Auditor-General recommended that future tree-planting initiatives adopt Forestry Commission-approved seedling prices as procurement benchmarks regardless of the procurement method used.
The report also urged the Ministry to fully involve procurement units of both the Ministry and the Forestry Commission in future acquisitions, maintain proper documentation of procurement activities and improve transparency and accountability throughout implementation.
Additionally, the Auditor-General called on the Ministry to immediately make arrangements to settle all outstanding payments owed to Local Seedling Suppliers for the 2021 and 2022 project cycles.
The audit paints a troubling picture of a flagship environmental programme that, while ambitious in scope and critical to reversing Ghana’s forest degradation, appears to have suffered from procurement inefficiencies, weak oversight and inadequate post-planting management.
With more than GH¢226 million already invested in Green Ghana, the findings are likely to intensify calls for greater accountability and stronger safeguards to ensure that future environmental interventions deliver maximum value for taxpayers while achieving their intended ecological impact.
