Golden Star Resources and its Oil Palm Plantation Project (GSOPP).

Golden Star Resources over the years has channeled huge investment resources towards sustainable community development and improving humanity as part of its corporate social responsibility in its operating communities, Ekow Essabra-Mensa,Mining and Metal Coresponden, looks at the development.

Golden Star Resources has among its corporate social responsibility campaigns its award-winning Golden Star Oil Palm Plantation Project (GSOPP), a specially-designed sustainable alternative livelihood initiative for the local communities which gained international recognition for humanity and community development.

GSOPP was established in 2006 as the flagship project under GSR’s alternative livelihood programme. Currently, there are over 700 hectares under active development. This innovative economic development programme enjoys community, traditional leader and government support, and the objective is to assist farmers own their own farms.

The main purpose of GSOPP is to provide an enduring source of employment through oil palm cultivation side by side with mining, and it is projected to replace mining when operations cease in the areas. The overall long-term plan is to plant over 5,000 hectares for 1,250 smallholder farmers and create employment for more than 4,000 people within the mining catchments areas in five years time.

The company has to date invested over US$1.8 million on the project, and the first 69 farmers started work on their smallholder farms last year.. For its innovative community effort, this Project was designated the first outside South Africa to be honoured with the prestigious Nedbank Green Mining Award for Sustainable Development.

Apart from the expenditure in GSOPP, it is significant that within four years the company has provided US$2,109,374.46 worth of community assistance to the communities within and around Bogosu and Prestea where it operates.

These include scholarships for students, potable water for several communities, a three-unit nurses’ quarters for Bogoso hospital, school furniture for five communities, a fully-stocked library for Bogoso, education facilities like the building blocks for the Prestea Secondary school classrooms and staff common-room, health care supplies for Prestea, health posts, electricity poles, school furniture and the grading of roads. The company also recently inaugurated at Prestea a new US$1.2 million police station complete with apartments for police officers to replace the old one specified by EPA to be too close to our mining operations

To fund these and other initiatives, the company through the Golden Star Development Foundation (GSDF) invests one dollar from every ounce of gold produced and sold into a fund. GSDF funds projects which usually fall under the categories of health, education, agriculture, sanitation, potable water and recreation.

Projects funded by the Development Foundation are recommended by a committee made up of Mining and Government representatives and Traditional leaders. This is to ensure that the community ultimately determines which projects best suits their needs.

Indeed, the company strives at all times and in line with its community relations and human rights policy, to conduct its business as a responsible corporate citizen by continuously strengthening good relationships with its stakeholder communities and by addressing their concerns in its development projects and ongoing operations.

In doing so, GSR stresses on the need to allow reality, decorum and mutual respect to inform all discussions and the outcome of the same in order to ensure peace and harmony in the communities it operates in. The company engages the communities through a structured Community Consultative Committee chaired by the area chief with the queen mother, women’s and youth’s representatives, assembly or unit committee members, community-based NGOs or organisations, and the chief farmer as members

This body receives all mining-related complaints, mediates between the mine and the community and also receives requests for assistance.

Community participation

The Community and Mine Consultative Committee is the highest consultative body between all the communities and the mine, and meet quarterly. Membership includes the District Chief Executive, District Coordinating Director, Divisional Chiefs, District Planning Officer and District Social Welfare Officer. The mine is represented by the General Manager (who is also the Chairman) and the Community Affairs Manager.

The Committee may co-opt the appropriate representative to the meeting, depending on the issue under discussion. The Committee also reviews all requests for community assistance from the Community Consultative Committee and administers the Golden Star Foundation Fund.

The Wassa operations, also in line with the community relations policy, adopt the same mode of engagement with the communities. In the area of community support, it has from 2004 to date provided US$1.2million worth of assistance in the areas of schools, a library, scholarships, and several hand-dug wells. Wassa has also single-handedly constructed the 80 km road from Wassa to Mpohor at a cost of US$26 million.

The raod to Wassa to Twifo – Praso is nearly complete. These two projects have opened up the Wassa community to the biggest neighbouring district, and it is hoped to enhance further economic activity.

Golden Star Resources (GSR, as a licensed mining exploration company, is considered to be a mid-tier gold mining company, which also shares the well-known attributes of the big players in the industry in terms of production and size.

Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, in the USA, GSR operates only two mining companies - both of which are located in Ghana. These are located in Prestea-Bogoso and Wassa-Mpohor, both in the Western Region, and are currently under Dan Owiredu, a celebrated Ghanaian mining executive as Vice President, while Tom Mair is the President and Chief Executive.

Together with AngloGold Ashanti, which is another global resources company, the two constitute the only mining companies listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange.