The acting Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, Hugh Clement A. Brown, has filed a defamation suit against the Bono Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwame Baffoe, widely known as Abronye DC, seeking GH¢20 million in damages.
The suit, filed at the High Court in Accra, follows allegations made by Baffoe in a broadcast aired online on July 10, 2025.
Baffoe accused Brown of forging official documents and unlawfully authorising the sale of portions of Ghana’s forest reserves while falsely backdating letters to implicate the previous administration.
In his statement of claim, Brown contends that the assertions made on OHIA TV’s programme – ‘The Evidence’ by Baffoe were not only false but calculated to damage his hard-earned reputation, both locally and internationally.
He is demanding GH¢15 million in general damages for libel, GH¢5 million in exemplary damages, and a series of public apologies and retractions to be broadcast and published across major television networks and newspapers. “The statements were made maliciously and without any factual basis,” Mr. Brown’s legal team wrote, adding that the televised accusations implied that their client is “an embezzler, a dishonest and fraudulent person, and a thief.”
Mr. Brown, a trained forester with a PhD in Tropical Forest Ecology, has worked at the Commission since 1993 and has held senior roles including Director of Operations and Executive Director of the Forest Services Division. He was appointed acting Chief Executive in January 2025.
In the 20-minute broadcast of the online television Ohia TV, Kwame Baffoe alleged that Brown had issued official documents in mid-2024—before his appointment—to facilitate payments from mining companies for forest entry permits.
The documents were said to have been dated June and May 2024 and bore Brown’s signature as Acting Chief Executive.
Mr. Baffoe claimed that these actions were part of a broader strategy to tarnish the image of the previous NPP-led administration by linking it to illegal mining deals. “If you backdate a letter to make it look like these events happened under the NPP regime, then you are engaging in forgery,” Mr. Baffoe said during the broadcast. He further alleged that Mr. Brown had collected payments through unofficial means and diverted proceeds from forest reserves into private hands.
The plaintiff disputes all these claims, asserting that at the time the documents were allegedly signed, he had not yet assumed the position of Acting CEO. He also dismissed the suggestion that he had tried to frame the NPP by backdating permits or making any financial irregularities.
As part of his reliefs, Mr. Brown is requesting six televised apologies from Baffoe to be aired on national channels including GTV, TV3, Joy TV, and OHIA TV, as well as printed retractions in the Daily Graphic over four consecutive weeks.
He is also asking for a formal apology to be posted on all OHIA TV digital platforms.
