Tension Still High At Prestea

...Mine Workers Won't Budge

AFTER THE recent skirmishes which led to the death of two people through a stray bullet fired by the security forces in their attempt to contain the situation, the tense atmosphere at Prestea, a mining town in the Wassa West district of the Western Region, appears not to have died down.

Information reaching the Chronicle in Takoradi indicate that the people had wanted to go on what a source described as a peaceful demonstration at Prestea last Thursday, to protest against the intended surface mining operations that are to be carried out in the area and the closure of the Prestea underground mine but they were stopped on the eleventh hour by the police.

A police source contacted on phone at Tarkwa confirmed this but said the police never stopped the intended demonstration.

According to the source, the police only asked those who were planning the demonstration to inform them why they wanted to go on the demonstration since they failed to state in the notice they sent to the police why they are organizing the demonstration.

"Up to date we have not heard from them," the source added. Investigation conducted by the Chronicle, however, revealed that the people are dissatisfied with the decision to close down the Prestea underground mine which was being operated by the defunct Prestea Gold Resources (PGR) and instead shifted to surface mining under the management of Bogoso Gold Limited (BGL).

It would be recalled that somewhere in February, this year, the Western Regional Minister, Hon. Joseph Boahen Aidoo, announced the government take over of PGR when he addressed the workers and a large number of the town folk at Prestea during his tour of the area.

The reason for the take over, according to J.B. Aidoo, was that the company which is owned by the workers owes its creditor a whopping sum of $10 million which they have not been able to pay. Besides this, salaries of workers are in arrears for five months.

The regional minister who was accompanied to the town by some members of the Regional Security Council (RCC), further told the workers that since his government did not have the money to bail out the company, they negotiated with BGL who have agreed to pay severance package of the workers of the defunct company including their five months salary arrears.

The regional minister also announced that BGL, the new managers of the mine, have also agreed to carry out both surface and underground mining.

PGR who were operating the underground mine alone was running at a loss since their production cost far exceeded the price of gold on the international market.

When the regional minister and his entourage which included journalists were leaving the durbar ground, some of the people, especially the women among them, were heard saying that though they lauded government decision to take over the company, they are not enthused about the closure of the underground mine.

Unconfirmed report that reached Chronicle in Takoradi later on hinted that a section of the PGR management were also not happy with the government decision to take over the company which was formed after the workers had put their severance pay they took from the South African investors who were operating the mine together to continue the operations of the mine.

According to Chronicle sources, management of PGR allegedly contended that at the time of the government take over, they had imported a number of equipment from abroad which would have enabled them to mine and pay the $10 million debt that was hanging on their neck.

As at the time of filing this report (Thursday afternoon), the Member of Parliament (MP) for Prestea Huni-Valley, Hon. Albert Kwaku Obbin was expected to address the workers later in the week to apparently find a lasting solution to the problem which explosion could be worse judging from what happened in the area recently where a chief was nearly lynched for failing to get more of his subjects employed by the mining company.