Trade unionist slams mining concessions

By Sandra Boadu, GIJ Intern

Accra - More than 70 per cent of the total land surface of Tarkwa, Prestea, Bogoso, Aboso, and Nsuta has been licensed to various mining companies to operate surface mines, a method which has hazardous effects on the environment, communities, health and the rights of the people.

This licence to explore and prospect has resulted in the relocation/resettlement and sometimes forced eviction of the communities, with little or no compensation given.

This was disclosed by Mrs. Hannah Koranteng, General Agricultural Women's unit of the TUC, when she spoke on the topic, 'The impact of mining on agriculture: The case of Wassa West District' at a two-day workshop for journalists on human rights and the environment.

The workshop was organised by the League of Environmental Journalists (LEJ), in collaboration with FIAN International, a human rights organisation based in Germany, that works to promote the right to feed oneself, in Accra.

According to Mrs. Koranteng, communities that refuse to relocate are forcibly evicted, sometimes with the help of state or private security personnel.

Terms of agreement reached between the companies and the communities for their land, normally benefit the companies who are represented by their lawyers, unlike the indigenes who lack legal representation and have no recognised body or organisation to negotiate on their behalf, and are weakened by corrupt chiefs and highly placed state officials.

She explained that many of the communities water bodies have become undrinkable due to mining activities. A cyanide spillage caused by Teberebie Goldfields destroyed cocoa farms and polluted River Ankobra.

"The only source of drinking water for Nkwantakrom and nearby villages became polluted when Ghana Australian Goldfields (GAG) directed their sewerage system into the stream. This was detected, after the villagers saw floating faeces on the water," Mrs. Koranteng said.

She noted that with over two billion dollars in investments in the mining sector, its contribution to the national GDP is only 2%, whereas agriculture with a much lower investment contributes about 36% of the GDP.

Agriculture and surface mining, she continued, both compete for land with the former fast losing. "The toxic emissions have affected crop yields, rainfall pattern and distribution, means of livelihood, and have broken and displaced families due to resettlements."

She indicated that, where the companies have provided housing facilities, they have been too small to accommodate the usually large families, thereby breaking up the family system, adding that boreholes provided to replace their water sources are often inadequate and soon dry up in the dry season.

Farming, she contended, is not allowed within the concession, where the communities have been resettled unless permission is given, even though the companies use less than 25 per cent of the vast land for their operation.

Where permission is granted, they are constrained to cultivate only seasonal crops like maize and vegetables rather then cash crops such as cocoa or coffee.

Compensation packages given, she said, are usually too meagre, and in terms of value, not equivalent to the land bought. "With this loss of land, their access to credit facilities and economic independence have been shattered."

Mrs. Koranteng appealed to human rights bodies, such as CHRAJ, to educate, sensitise and protect the people's rights at the rural level.

She tasked government to consider the benefit/cost analysis to assess whether mining is beneficial to the region or not.