A pit owned by the AngloGold Ashanti Company in Obuasi has resulted in the entrapment of approximately 30 individuals who are thought to be illegal miners or “galamseyers.”
The Ghanaian Times newspaper reports that the incident occurred at AngloGold’s Cote d’Ivoire pit.
They were said to have sneaked into the pit at Anwiam, a suburb of Obuasi, to prospect for gold. However, relatives of the victims noticed that they hadn’t been there in a while and expressed concern yesterday.Nana Amoako Gyanpah, Okyerekrom’s chief, confirmed the development and attributed it to AngloGold’s concealment of the pits.
The pit had been neglected by the company for about a decade.In 2020, I wrote a petition to AngloGold to remind them that my community and I do not comprehend why they have neglected it. Because there is a pit under my area, they must come and reclaim the land (because we needed the land for our local farming activities), and they have neglected it for so long.
According to what he told JoyNews, “currently in 2022 I wrote another one still to no avail then I have to call the press and explain certain things within our own community to them.”
However, senior sustainability manager Emmanuel Baidoo of AngloGold Ashanti claims that the concession still belongs to the company and attributes the trespassing to the locals.
He emphasized that the company had compensated all of the community’s pit-adjacent farmers.
“It is not a piece of land that has been given to the community; rather, it is within our concession, which indicates that we still have an interest in it…there may be a possibility of us going to remine because the ore belongs to the state and we must ensure that it is mined; additionally, there may be a possibility that it is part of our reclamation program; therefore, we will cover it at this time.
“We had compensated all farms in that area in relation to the mining activity there and the lease that we have,” he noted. “The said pit is about 2.5 km from the said community, so it is not even close to the community.