The Mayor of Accra, Elizabeth Naa Kwatsoe Sackey, has planted a Veitchia palm tree on the John Evans Atta Mills High Street to commemorate the 2024 Green Ghana Day.
The Veitchia palm, also known as the ‘Showers of Gold’ palm tree is a six-foot-long stocky, single-trunked palm with stiffly arched, bright green fronds noted for its elegant appearance.
The Green Ghana Day Initiative was introduced in 2021 by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as part of a national aggressive effort to plant about 5 million seedlings nationwide to promote afforestation, greening, and improve climate change issues in the country and other parts of the world.
This year, the initiative, which was under the theme ‘’Growing for a greener tomorrow”, aimed to plant approximately 10 million seedlings across the country.
Speaking to the media after the exercise, the Mayor of Accra expressed profound commitment to restoring Accra’s green environment to contribute to the fight against climate change and disclosed that 400 trees were being planted in the metropolis to mark the day.
According to her, a planned structure was already in place to ensure good maintenance of the plants to serve future generations, adding that AMA was collaborating with the Parks and Gardens Department and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) to plant more trees.
The Mayor was joined by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Her Ladyship Gertrude Torkonoo, and the President of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), Kurt Okraku who also planted a tree to mark the day.
In a related development, the Head of Planning and Coordinating Unit at the AMA, Mr Richard Kwame Oduro, represented the Mayor of Accra at tree planting exercises organised in selected schools in the Okaikoi South and Ablekuma South Sub-Metropolitan Districts.
He urged the school pupils not to only plant the seedlings but nurture them to grow emphasising the importance of the exercise as a climate action.
