Presidency Responds To Achimota Forest Reserve Alleged Sale

The President’s Office has responded to several reports that the Achimota Forest Reserve was purportedly sold.

Mr Eugene Arhin, Director of Communications at the Presidency, commented on the matter in a social media post, sharing a quotation from President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo from the World Press Freedom Day Awards Dinner in 2018.

The president warned against the mainstream media’s growing trend of deception in the quoted comment.

As a result of the twisting of facts, he claims, misinformation causes everyone to rush to the bottom.

“The second risk we have to guard against is that of inadvertent misinformation, that is sometimes published by mainstream media, which also has the potential to lead us all in a race to the bottom. This happens when there is a little twist of facts often to get the best headline or a publication of the unverified claim in the haste to be first in breaking the news. The worrying trend is that, in many cases, even after the public has been misinformed, and the true facts are later made known, mainstream media often chickens out of an honest open acknowledgement that “we erred”. The choice is often to sweep it under the carpet, and move on to the next big story,” President Akufo said.

After an Executive Instrument (E.I) about the Achimota Forest Reserve went viral, social media sites, particularly Twitter, had ‘Achimota Forest’ trending at number one.

According to E.I. 144, a portion of the Achimota Forest under President Nana Akufo-administration Addo’s will no longer be recognized as a forest reserve as of May 1, 2022.