Youth leaders and chiefs from the host communities of the Newmont Africa Ahafo Mine Project have pledged their unflinching support for the mine which is expected to produce commercial quantities of gold in 2025.
Why supporting the project
The community youth leaders: Thomas Boateng; Richard Adai Yeboah; Michael Boagye; Richard Adusei, Secretary of FOCUS, an NGO; and Victor Daapah, also with the FOCUS, are supported the project because it would bring development to the area by creating more opportunities, attract in investments, create jobs, and reduce endemic poverty in the area.
“If you cast our minds back, had it not been for Newmont Ahafo North’s intervention, the people were mainly poor.
When Newmont came to the Ahafo North, it has given numerous scholarships to the people, embarking on massive infrastructure projects such as building schools, clinics, boreholes, roads, among others”, Mr Adusei said during their recent interaction with some selected members of Journalists For Business Advocacy (JBA) in Sunyani, the Ahafo regional.
These are good indications that the company is a good one and must be supported by the five host communities such as Yamfo, Adrobaa, Techire, Susuanso and Afrisipakrom in the Tano North Municipality of the Ahafo Region.
Although the company has not fully started the Ahafo North Project, “we have benefitted a lot so far. This means that when we support the company to start full operations, we will get more developments in the area”.
The farmers who have already been compensated are developing themselves. They are building new houses, establishing new businesses, among others.
Some have purchased vehicles that will be able to do transportation for commercial purposes, etc. etc. Some also used their compensated money to go into mechanized farming. While the majority of individuals in the area have positioned themselves to benefit from the new mine when it starts operating fully.
“So, we are in 100% support of the Newmont Ahafo North Project because of the above stated reasons”, they stated.
Employment
In terms of employment too, they have been assured that there would be a conscious effort to help the locals to take part in the mining activities. These are the two main things that if Newmont fulfills them, everything will be alright between them.
To this end, the youth leaders said they are trying to make sure that Newmont empowers the local-local people so that some would be able to open some firms to employ other people in the area.
For instance, when you empower a local-local company it is going to take its employees from the communities. Just two weeks ago, Newmont organized a training programme for 50 local-local companies.
They are going to develop them to enable them to participate in the mine after the vigorous training.
Newmont will also make sure that three out of the 50 companies go international by participating in big ticket projects outside the country.
The community youth leaders also used the opportunity to advise their brothers and sisters in the five host communities that Newmont has come to stay.
Knowing that in the interim, the company is injecting $850 million into the economy. This is a huge sum of money.
They acknowledged that Newmont cannot employ all the people in the area. So, they are encouraging them to position themselves in which way they can, to enable them to benefit from the project.
Some can go into welding, fabrication, carpentry, and some can go into carpentry and masonry; and some can also move into commercial farming which will boost food production in the area.
Individuals from the project communities are being encouraged by the company itself to establish their local-local businesses so that they can also be partners to the mining giant.
The forward-looking youth leaders are satisfied with what Newmont Africa has done for the communities so far. Also, a Sustainable Development Committee will be set up very soon for the Municipal Assembly there to get mining contracts and distribute among businesses owned by the local people.
Somewhere last year, the company gave some slots to train the locals for the construction work under its Construction Workers Training Programme to enable the local people to part-take in the construction of the concession.
The community youth leaders said: “We were asked to train some of our people in various sections of welding and fabrication, equipment operations, crane operations, steel bending, carpentry and masonry”.
In the case of the Newmont Ahafo South mine, such programmes were not given to the people of the mining communities before the start of the Ahafo South mining project.
But here that has been done in the Ahafo North Project to enable our people to prepare themselves before the company starts the project entirely”.
Better resettlement package
Victor Dapaah, Secretary of FOCUS which has been around for some time and understands how resettlements are done, noted: “If you look at the buildings that are going to be built for those who are embarking on resettlement, you can see a vast difference”.
I am part of the Resettlement Negotiation Committee (RNC) and I have been to the Kenyasi and Ntotrosu and other resettlement areas and have seen what has been done there.
If you compare the kind of infrastructures Newmont is bringing to Ahafo North especially with the buildings, there is a major difference though they have not been put up yet”.
We have seen the site plans and other agreements which have been signed between the company and the yet to be resettled people or communities before Newmont produces the houses.
If you compare what should be done for the people in the Ahafo North and what we are seeing in the Ahafo South, the difference is huge”.
Even the money for compensation if you look at what people are taking now as compared to what people took many years ago and even recent compensation that has been paid by many different companies around that area, you will see that what is happening in the Ahafo North is very huge.
Responding the Communications and External Affairs Manager for the Newmont Ahafo North and South Mines, Samuel Osei however said that; “it is not because Newmont likes Ahafo North more than the Ahafo South.
But it is a result of lessons learnt. We realized that Newmont Gold Akyim was an improvement over Ahafo South and Ahafo North is an improvement over Ahafo South. The future project will also be an improvement over the Ahafo North”.
Even in Ahafo South, he said the new buildings that the company is building there, are using the same benchmark and best practice used in the Ahafo North Project.
Also, there is difference in time and difference in other dynamics. That is why there are differences in the Ahafo South and Ahafo North projects.
Compensation packages
The mining giant also paid over GHS40 million as a relief package to owners of 800 illegal speculative structures on the concession which paved the way for the company to start clearing and putting temporary offices on the concession while addressing the challenge of the concerned farmers.
Additionally, an amount of $14 million had been allocated for the resettlement package in which part of it would be used to resettle local businesses such as barbering, hairdresser and carpentry shops, poultry farms, among others.
Impasse over crops and farmlands compensation
Although the multi-million-dollar project is ongoing, some 25 individual farmers whose crops and farmlands are thinly spread over the concession, are delaying the full-scale take off of the project.
A whopping amount of GHS186.2 million had been paid to over 2,000 farmers in the ongoing crops and farmlands compensation while these recalcitrant individual farmers who came together to form a group called concerned farmers are refusing to accept the compensation for their crops and farms.
The community youth leaders said: “It is only left with some 25 individual farmers who are not happy with the crops and farmlands compensation package offered by the mining company”.
So, they are resisting to vacant their farmlands for the project to fully take off, according to them.
However, according to them, the concerned farmers could not continue to put the whole project into ransom.
“So, we are in full support of the Ahafo North Project. The youth leaders, chiefs and the entire communities are in full support of the project”.
Strategies to engage the concerned farmers
They said: “We have visited the concerned farmers individually to engage them to accept the crops and farms compensation”, but they stick to their guns.
The leaders foresaw that engaging them in a group may not work so they visited them individually, but it did not work. “Whenever we talked to them separately, they became convinced but when they came together, they stuck to their position”.
The community youth leaders believe that the “concerned farmers are still being brainwashed by WACAM”, an anti-mining NGO, not to accept the mouth-watery compensation.
The concerned farmers think that they can get a higher compensation package than the already over 2,000 farmers who have been compensated. But this is impossible.
They are just dragging the mining company intentionally after refusing several dialogue meetings from powerful authorities.
For instance, the Ahafo Regional Minister, Municipal Chief Executive, chiefs, among others have invited them for such meetings but they refused to attend.
So, it is deliberate to frustrate the mining company.
The youth leaders said the concerned farmers are so few, and they cannot allow them to hold back the Newmont Ahafo North Project which is critical for the socio-economic development of the area and the country.
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report, back from Ahafo Region, Ghana
