Newmont Apologises, Accepts To Pay Penalty

Accra, Jan. 19, GNA - Newmont Ghana Gold Limited (NGGL) has apologised for the cyanide spillage at its Ahafo Mine Project and accepted to pay the GH¢ 7.0 million penalty the Ministerial Panel that evaluated the accident imposed on it.

The Panel said GH¢ 3.1 million of the amount should go to the affected communities. The Environmental Protection Agency is to receive GH¢ 2.8 million while the Inspectorate Division of the Minerals Commission gets GH¢ 1.05 million.

Newmont's Senior Vice President for African Operations, Jeff Huspeni has said: "The Company accepts responsibility for any failure to meet its standards, and we reiterate our regret and apologies for the overflow and for any anxiety caused in the local community over the safety of their drinking water supplies and fish," according to a statement from the Company.

The statement said: "Newmont Ghana has rigorously reviewed and modified its control systems and monitoring procedures - with the participation of regulatory agencies - to ensure incidents like this do not happen in the future."

It said the Company has implemented a number of measures to reduce the risk of overfilling the event pond during mill shutdowns; improved the reliability of the instrumentation and level detection systems; it has increased the event pond pumping capacity to redirect process solution more quickly during rain events and improve containment within the processing plant site in the event other systems fail during a process water overflow.

Other measures include improved and accelerated communication with stakeholders and improved onsite protocols and procedures. Responding to the Panel's observation that the Company's failure to keep samples of the spill and to immediately notify Government regulators of the spillage amounted to a cover-up, Mr Huspeni said that internal communications and assessment failures, along with the operational supervision lapses, resulted in the regulatory agencies not being immediately notified, which may have inadvertently created an appearance of a cover-up.

"Our failure to communicate immediately was due, in part, to the fact that our initial assessments mistakenly determined that the overflow was contained within the process plant area. "Nevertheless, we should have notified the regulatory authorities immediately, and we apologize for failing to do so. This communication failure was a mistake on our behalf, and we will not let this happen again," Mr Huspeni stated.

"We are committed to working with the regulatory authorities to improve our reporting protocols and also to review and improve our emergency response mechanisms," the statement said. The Company said it was continuing to engage with regulators to review the causes of the overflow, its impacts and would implement any additional recommendations to ensure an accidental release of this nature did not occur again.

Mr Hupeni said: "We are committed to improving our processes and to reassuring local communities of Newmont Ghana's ongoing commitment to their safety, while re-establishing confidence in our environmental controls and reporting mechanisms," adding that Newmont's first priority remained the safety of its neighbours, employees and the environment. On 12 October 2009 Newmont reported that it had "contained and neutralized within its mine site, a minor chemical overflow which occurred at its processing plant." This was three days after the incident. WACAM, a human rights and mining advocacy nongovernmental organization, accused Newmont of downplaying the extent of the cyanide spillage and called on the Government to investigate the whole incident.

were affected included Adofoasa; Kontokrom; Bamfowaakrom; Akosua Gyakakrom; Bronikrom; Afua Serwaakrom; Kuma Gyakakrom; Yateaberee, Kyeikrom and Kantinkakrom all in the Asutifi District of the Brong Ahafo Region. The Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Ms Shirley Ayittey set up the Ministerial Panel to investigate the cyanide spillage. 19 Jan. 10