Newmont reacts to allegations

Newmont Ghana Gold Limited has denied various allegations made by civil society organisation and some community members regarding its ongoing Akyem project, located in the Ajenua Bepo Forest Reserve at New Abriem in the Eastern region.

Adiki Ofeibea Ayitevie, Regional Manager, Communications, Newmont Ghana explained to B&FT that the proposed area to be mined within the Ajenua Bepo Forest reserve makes up only about 3.8 percent of the total footprint of the Akyem Project mining area. The rest of the project area will be situated outside Ajenua Bepo forest.

“The small fraction constituting about seven percent or 44 hectares of the 569 hectares Ajenua Bepo forest is the only area that will be directly impacted by the Akyem project. Moreover, the area is composed of only small true forest patches and not close to other forest communities.

“Several investigators including V. Hawthorne and M. Abu-Juam have classified this forest area as degraded and a secondary forest,” she stated.

She further explained that the impacted forest area forms 0.04 percent of the over 18,000 hectares of total District forest reserve area which cannot have lasting impact on rainfall levels of the area. All surface land disturbance areas, she said, will be revegetated during and after the mine operation and this will return those areas to normal hydrologic function in terms of rainfall runoff and retention.

This notwithstanding, she added that Newmont has, since early 2007, also installed a fully equipped meteorological (weather) station within the proposed mining area to collect and record data on and monitor wind speed, wind direction, rainfall, temperature, evaporation, and humidity. These data are validated, entered into the Project data base and are periodically reported. This information will continue to be collected and monitored throughout the life of the mine and through the reclamation period.

However, in a petition signed by 29 community members to the government and its related agencies, they said the Ajenua Mountain, together with the forest area improves the rainfall pattern in the region, thus boosting agriculture.

The Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM), the civil society group leading the campaign explained that its decision to lead a crusade against Newmont’s action is motivated by the fact that the project will displace over 1,000 people, and destroy the livelihoods of over 7,000 additional people.

Mr. Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, Executive Director of WACAM said: “We have petitioned the government to withdraw the certificate given to Newmont Gold Ghana to mine in the Ajenua Bepo Forest Reserve.”

According to the petition, “Newmont Akyem project convinces us that the project would develop into one of the irresponsible mining projects in Ghana which are violating the rights of mining communities in terms of loss against community people, loss of livelihood, low compensation payment, pollution of rivers, poor resettlement and displacement of communities.

“Since Newmont received the mining lease in January 2010, the company had established a Task Force made up of paid community agents of the company and the company security to prevent us from carrying out our normal farming activities even when the company had not negotiated compensation with us.

This violates our right as contained in Section 13(9) of the Minerals and Mining Act (703), 2006 because the provision makes it obligatory for Newmont to negotiate compensation with affected farmers based on the compensation principles (Section 74 of the Minerals and Mining Act) before it can enter our lands.”

B&FT has gathered that the Akyem mine project has an equity reserve of 7.7 million ounces of gold with US$1 billion investment and has about 15 years mining life.

It is expected to produce between 480, 000 and 550, 000 ounces of gold a year for the first five years of its operation with production expected to start in early 2014.
Initial capital cost is estimated at $70-million, for infrastructure and compensation payment. Engineering for the project is about 70 percent complete. This is to pave way for the building of the mining plant that begins the full scale mining production.