Five mining communities in the Ahafo Region where mining giant, Newmont Gold Limited operates, have accused the company of becoming overly powerful.
The communities Kenyasi No 1 and 2, Ntotroso, Gyedu, and Wamahinso who refer to themselves as “Coalition of Five Affected Mine Communities” in a detailed press conference read by Mr Abdul Karim Yeboah, Secretary of the Coalition on behalf of the communities also accused Newmont of taking unilateral decisions in defiance of opinions of stakeholders in the affected communities.
Portions of their statement read “….after all the efforts and time put into preparing our inputs, none, except the point on employing 100% Local-locals for unskilled jobs, was accepted into the new agreement. All the others were rejected.”
The refusal by the mining giant to consider the inputs of the affected communities as alleged by the Coalition “did not go down well with the youth” and so the Coalition says “we therefore presented a petition to the forum and Newmont, reechoing our point of view and encouraging them to consider some of them.”
Mr Yeboah in his statement further accused the company of cheating the communities their due as communities based on the amount of gold produced.
“We as a community have received one dollar ($1) per every ounce of gold produced and one percent (1%) of pretax profit since 2008 when gold price was around Eight hundred dollars per an ounce”, the Coalition alleged.
“We insist that the earlier agreement wherein every ounce of Gold, $1 (One Dollar) is contributed to the community fund should be changed to at least 3% contribution to the community fund” they charged. They further threatened not to “accept anything if not in percentages which must be related to the ounces of gold produced.”
They are also demanding the resignation of the moderator whom they averred has outlived his tenure. “The tenure of office for the moderator and the co-moderator has expired and there is no law that supports them to stay beyond their mandate”, the statement read.
Source: Oseini Kweku
