The Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Henry Kwabena Kokofu, has disclosed that government only sent 24 out of the 170 delegates to the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

Disclaiming the reports making rounds that Ghana sent over 300 delegates to the COP26 Summit, he noted that, that was not the case. According to Mr. Kokofu, these were people who expressed interest for the COP26 meeting.

“We need to decipher what represents participants, that is the government participants and [private ones]. Here we also have participants representing government as delegates. We’ve heard the conversation going on in Ghana with the figure of 337 people”.
Henry Kwabena Kokofu

According to Mr. Kokofu, the 170 participants who attended the summit were mostly from the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) with others coming from academia and the private sector.

“The government delegation per say amounted to 24 in number. Some of them did not get their visas, others registered just to participate virtually, others couldn’t make it. By the count of the day, we had about 170 people as participants”.
Henry Kwabena Kokofu

This follows a list containing 337 names reportedly representing Ghana’s delegation to the COP26 summit which went viral on social media over the weekend. A section of Ghanaians described it as a drain on the national coffers due to the number of participants purported to have attended the summit.

Misinformation

Mr. Kokofu described the number of participants being purported as Ghana’s delegation to Glasgow as misinformation and noted that the 170 that registered were mostly ‘on and off’ because they attend particular side of the events and workshops or perhaps engage in some negotiations and leave.

“The number that presented themselves for registration, not all of them were able to attend. And I have explained it was either constraint and others decided to stay back home and do virtual”.
Henry Kwabena Kokofu

He added that with regards to the official 24 participants that are participating, they’ve had some who did the first part of the week because their schedules were for the first week.

“They have left or they are leaving. And those who will come in the second week are being welcomed. So, as we speak today, out of the 170, 40 have left for Ghana already”.
Henry Kwabena Kokofu

He revealed that by the close of Wednesday, November 10, 2021 more than half would have also left.

Side engagements ongoing

Mr. Kwabena Henry Kokofu touching on the side engagements with some leaders with regards to national and environmental issues, averred that some of the meetings have already taken place with subsequent ones to follow.

He said with regards to the meeting, most of the ministers present particularly the Minister of Energy, Matthew Opoku Prempeh and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shirley Ayorko Botwe have had some engagement.

“Today and tomorrow the Minister for Environment will have his turn. There are few areas that we need to iron out and the ministers have been tasked to do so; through the carbon market and then through the adaptation goals”.
Henry Kwabena Kokofu

Further commenting on concerns raised as to why the delegates didn’t participate virtually to reduce carbon emission through flights, he indicated that some events and engagements demanded their physical presence.