RE: Press Statement By Hon. Edward Ennin In Reaction To Anglogold Ashanti’s 2010 Public Eye Award
Our attention has been drawn to a press statement issued by the Honourable Member of Parliament for Obuasi, Mr. Edward Ennin in reaction to AngloGold Ashanti’s 2010 Public Eye Award which they won in Davos, Switzerland.
In the statement, Hon. Ennin takes issues with Wacam’s nomination of AngloGold Ashanti for the 2010 Public Eye Awards, which the company subsequently won. According to the Honourable Member of Parliament, Wacam (formally Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining) has no business nominating AngloGold Ashanti for the award because the organisation cannot claim to be a “voice for the voiceless in the municipality”. He goes ahead to enumerate a number of “contributions” to “socio-economic development” that the company had made to the municipality for which reason it did not deserve the award as the “most evil company in the world”.
We find it very amusing that the Honourable Member of Parliament claims to have been “born and brought up in Obuasi” is for the first time commenting on issues that have dominated discussions in the municipality for such a long time. Much more shocking is the fact that since 2004 he has been the representative of the people of Obuasi in the national assembly.
It is either the MP does not know what is going on in his own constituency or he has been compromised. Here is an MP who has consistently refused to meet with representatives of mining affected communities in his own constituency to discuss issues pertaining to their livelihoods that had been destroyed by mining operations of AngloGold Ashanti. Here is an MP who for the past seven years that he has been in the Parliament of Ghana has never raised any issue on the floor of the House to bring to national attention, the plight of the people. Here is an MP who, whiles on a trip to Obuasi with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines, of which he was Vice-Chairman, visited the company and did not see it fit to interact with the communities. We doubt very much if he is truly a representative of the people.
Much more curious is the fact that Honourable Ennin did not deny even one of the human rights abuses which formed the basis of Wacam’s nomination of the company. We would want the Honourable MP to come out again and let the whole world know whether it is not true that:
1. Clement Kofi Baffoe, a 27 year old man from Odumase Aduaneyede, was arrested by mine security, beaten to pulp and detained in the private detention facilities of the mine. Clement later died at 9pm that day.
2. Awudu Mohammed from Sansu was shot in the abdomen by a combined security team of mine security and police in 2005? Till date, Awudu is still not fully recovered and has great difficulty urinating as a result of the callousness on the part of the company.
3. The company has polluted water bodies in the Obuasi area. The latest was the pollution of River Fena in March 2009. A committee set up with representatives of the company, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Obuasi Municipal Assembly, Amansie Central District Assembly and affected communities recommended that the company provide boreholes for the communities. Till date, that has not been complied with.
Honourable Ennin must be reminded that people in his constituency are suffering from a loss of livelihoods. If now he has creditably acquitted himself well as a mouthpiece of the company, we are appealing to him to use his big voice to impress on the company to restore the livelihoods of poor farmers in Binesere, Dokyiwa, Mamiriwa, Sansu, Anyinam, Apitiso, Nhyiaeso, Anwiam among many others who have been rendered poor and vulnerable due to the operations of the company.
We further find it laughable that the MP goes ahead to list these so-called socio-economic development that he says the company has brought to Obuasi. He mentions the Len Clay Stadium and employment among others. He should trek to Sansu, Anwiam, Anyinam, Nhyiaeso, Dokyiwa, Binsere and do a head count of the number of farmers who come to watch football games at the Len Clay Sports stadium each Sunday. He puts out a figure of 7200 as the number of people who are employed by the mine. Need we remind the Hon. MP that more than three times the number have been rendered unemployed by the same company? Is he aware that at the height of the company’s surface mining operations in the 1990s, more than 20,000 farmers lost their livelihoods? What measures has he put in place to ensure such people have alternative livelihoods that will restore their dignity as human beings?
Honourable Ennin further makes a point that the award winners should have consulted all stakeholders before announcing the award. We wish to tell him that if he had been up to his responsibilities as a Member of Parliament, and facilitated smooth interactions between the company and the communities, this award would not have been necessary in the first place. Wacam only nominated AngloGold Ashanti for the award. Whether the company won the award or not depended on the evidence that was presented.
That it took a private non-governmental organisation like Wacam to bring the atrocities of the company to international attention is an indictment on the Member of Parliament who is the people’s own representative. Wacam is a Ghanaian registered organisation and does not need permission from anybody to talk about human rights issues which have been held to be universal. In this regard, Wacam does not need the consent of anybody; much less the Member of Parliament to highlight issues of human rights violations which have been occurring under his watch as Member of Parliament.
Unfortunately, Honourable Ennin does not appear to be abreast of events in relation to Wacam’s relationship with AngloGold Ashanti. A little bit of education will help him.
• Wacam was invited by affected communities and came to Obuasi in early 2001 following reports of human rights abuses perpetrated by the then Ashanti Goldfields Company which later became AngloGold Ashanti.
• Wacam took up these cases of human rights abuses and started a national campaign with the National Coalition on Mining to stop abuses in mining communities.
• When the nation’s attention was drawn to these abuses and the company started reeling under a lot of criticism, they agreed to enter into a dialogue process with Wacam in 2003 to address these human rights abuses.
• Throughout the period when the dialogue process was on-going, the company showed a lot of contempt for the process, breaking off at several times.
• Finally in 2007, at a meeting, both the company and Wacam agreed to set up a fact finding mission to tour the communities to ascertain the veracity of allegations of human rights abuses that both sides had levelled against each other.
• The Joint Investigative Committee undertook the fact-finding in September of 2007 after which the committee asked Wacam to prepare a report and a copy was sent to AGA for comments. AGA agreed that the report represented the facts on the ground and would get back to Wacam and the communities.
• From September 2007 till date, the company has not thought it expedient to come back to the negotiating table.
• The government of Ghana represented by the Minister of Environment Science and Technology has instituted the Akoben Environmental Rating and Disclosure Programme in which AGA Obuasi and Iduapriem scored red indicating that the company’s practises are associated with violations which are severe and create a credible risk of damage to the environment or the humans. In sum it is an indication of poor environmental performance by AGA.
• For the information of Hon. Ennin, the management of the company in published responses to the Public Eye Award in the Ghanaian media acknowledge the challenges that Wacam highlighted and went further to promise to work with Wacam and other civil society groups to address these challenges.
Probably in his haste to please the company, the Honourable MP failed to do the necessary background checks and re-nominates the AngloGold Ashanti for another award. The result of this is the hastily written statement that is bereft of any coherent ideas because he contradicts himself in several areas.
In conclusion, we wish to advise Honourable Edward Michael Ennin that he is in Parliament at the instance of the good people of Obuasi. He is therefore supposed to serve their interests by consistently bringing the plight of the people to the attention of the nation. If he has woefully failed in his duty to serve his constituents as a Member of Parliament, the best he can do is to zip up and allow civil society groups like Wacam to do the talking for him.
Thank you.
