By: Nicholas Osei-Wusu
There is a looming insecurity in the Obuasi Municipality of Ashanti as some residents have forcibly taken over a legally licensed mining concession of a Gold mining company.
The situation is leading not only to the loss of about $168 Million Dollars of investment but also scaring away prospective investors at the expense of both the local and national economies with a threat to safety and security in the Obuasi enclave.
At a media briefing at Obuasi following the failure of all efforts for a peaceful resolution of the impasse, the Managing Director of Mining and Construction Services Limited, Andrews Agyemang Amoah, disclosed that, to make matters worse, the illegal miners have allegedly violently attacked him and some other senior staff members of the company and warned them not to enter the site again.
Obuasi has become notorious in recent years in violent conflicts between legal mining concession holders and galamsey operators that have already led to the loss of many lives.
The recent incident saw the shooting to death of nine men who were allegedly invading one of the mining pits of AngloGold Ashanti.
Mining and Construction Services Limited, a wholly Ghanaian mining entity, acquired different gold mining concessions in the Amansie Central district and Obuasi West Municipality of the Ashanti region in 2020.
Mr. Amoah showed to the journalists all legal documents corroborating the legal acquisition of the concessions, including one measuring 151.72 Ha at Anyankyirem in Obuasi with gold deposit potential of more than 100 thousand tons during the 13-year lease period.
The mine has the prospect to be the second biggest miner in the Adansi traditional area after AngloGold Ashanti and the only indigenous mine to sustain the local economy in future.
The concession license is renewable every five years with the first consideration for a renewal expected in December this year.
Since the acquisition of the lease, the company proved also that every lawful process required for start of operation such as stakeholder consultation including the host community, Obuasi West Municipal Assembly and the Ghana Police Service, has been complied with.
However, in May this year, a group of residents of Obuasi, led by one Zamba Musah, a known political activist, allegedly entered the concession at Anyankyirem demanding that a considerable portion be ceded to them to also mine for gold.
According to Mr. Amoah, before management of the company would decide on the demand, not only has the electricity transformer installed by the mining company been hijacked, but that the intruders had also become violently hostile to workers of the concession holders, Mining and Construction Services Limited, with the Managing Director himself not spared as he was physically attacked and warned to stay away from the site.
He said however, that formal complaint to the Police and National Security Secretariat have not yielded any thing positive, even though, according to him, the National Security, upon perusal of the document covering the lease conceded genuineness of the concession.
Mr. Amoah said, the company has exhausted all dialogue behind the scene opportunities to peacefully resolve the illegal takeover of the concession since May and now decided to come public for the people to know the situation, which he noted, is scaring away prospective investors.
Meanwhile, at the General Assembly Meeting of the Obuasi West Municipal Assembly when the matter came up for consideration to forestall any possible disturbances resulting from forcible takeover of the concession, no definite decision was taken.
Also, the suspected leader of the illegal miners who have invaded the concession, Musah Zamba, has refused to speak to the matter on record.
