Chief Executive Officer of Volta River Authority (VRA), Mr Emmanuel Antwi-Darkwa, has pledged commitment to plant and nurture trees to maintain the Volta Lake at all times.
He said the Authority owed responsibility to the public to operate and ensure that all water resource systems in the country, particularly the Volta River system was kept pristine and managed in a sustainable manner.
Mr Antwi-Darkwa said this on Friday at the Green Ghana Tree Planting durbar on the theme: “VRA at 60: Investing in the Greening Ghana Initiative for Energy and Environmental Sustainability”.
Mr Antwi-Darkwa and his management planted ten trees around its office to support the Green Ghana initiative, spearheaded by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.
The initiative is a government’s objective to ensure the planting of five million trees nationwide.
He said the initiative tied to the Authority’s “Volta Gorge Reforestation Programme (VGRP)”, aimed at forest cover restoration through the protection of the existing vegetation and restocking of all degraded lands.
The VGRP consisted of 23 reforestation projects being implemented in 23 riparian communities along both the Eastern and Western banks of the Volta Gorge in the Asougyaman district.
“We have so far covered a substantial amount of area with new vegetative cover consisting of both plantation and natural forest”, he said.
He said the initiative was important because sustainable development was key to the Authority’s business and its stakeholders, adding that issues of climate change and environmental protection were of utmost importance to the company.
The CEO said the Authority as the country’s premier power generator would lead the effort to build clean and more environmentally sustainable power systems that would safeguard future generations.
“This is why we continue to embark on significant investments in renewable projects and other low carbon power generation technologies to maintain the country’s low and acceptable carbon footprint.”
Mr Emmanuel Dankwa Osafo, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer in charge of Engineering and Operations, VRA called on all to join in the national exercise to preserve and protect the country’s forest cover and the environment.
“We all have to work together to avert the continuous degradation of the environment because when trees are threatened, our environment will be affected”, he said.
