A delegation from the Wassa Fiase Traditional Council has visited the Benso site of Golden Star Wassa Mine to get first hand information on the destruction caused at the company’s site by some illegal miners.
The delegation, led by the Chief of Bontoware, Aboso Nsuaem, Nana Kwasi Akrosa II was taken around to have a look at the degree of destruction.
The illegal miners attacked the company on Thursday March 16, 2023 after security officials had sacked these galamseyers from mining on one of the company’s concessions at Benso called the eye zone.
In the course of sacking them, there was an alleged discharge of bullets where one of the galamseyers got hurt. He was sent to the BOPP Clinic for treatment but died at the clinic. This angered the illegal miners who matched to Subriso, the community where the decease lived, to inform community folks of the incident and mounted a heavy attack on the company.
Workers had to ran away for their lives as the galamseyers massed up in their numbers with fuel and entered the premises and attacked machinery and equipment.
They burnt uncountable pickups and land cruisers, offices, air conditioners, excavators, trucks water bowser, among others. The exploration vehicle and exploration service van that keeps fuel and other things needed in the pit were burnt as well.
The core yard where drilling holes’ information are kept was burnt, to the point that the company could not trace them again.
After the fuel they came in with had finished, they begun to smash windscreens of over 22 trucks belong to two major contractors of the company; Yellow Power and Edgate Mining Services who are into mining and haulage respectively.
Nana Akrosa II on behalf of the Wassa Fiase Omanahene condemned the attack on the mine saying “this is a disgrace to Wassaman”.
He said “we are going to put measures in place to ensure that something of this nature will never happen again. We shall call for an emergency meeting including the mining company and take measures to stop this outright”.
He said any chief who is found in dealing in galamsey will not be allowed by the Omanhene of Wassa Fiase to operate, and those who have given their lands to galamseyers are also to advice themselves.
The Vice President and Managing Director of Golden Star Resources, Shadrack Adjetey Sowah commended the chiefs for visiting the site to have firsthand information.
He was worried immigrants have invaded the land of Wassa for galamsey activities, destroying the forest, land and water bodies.
“There is gold in Burkina Faso, Mali and the northern part of Ghana. Why have they all decided to came to Wassa land for galamsey? Why don’t they do some there”? he quizzed.
He charged chiefs in Wassa to come together and decide to say no to immigrants who come to Wassa for galamsey activities to disgrace the Wassaland.
He explained that plans are far advanced to get a police post for the company in order to ensure maximum security of the company and its workers.
“When the incident happened, we called for reinforcement, unfortunately by the time they reached here, the people had finished with their operations and left, so the police post will stop some of these things”, he added.
According to Mr Adjetey Sowah, he had wanted to close the mine after the incident, because the new owners Chifeng Jilong Gold had invested huge sums of money into the Benso operations.
“I had decided not to open the Benso mine again, but with the calls I have received from chiefs, sympathizers and various stakeholders I have decided to open the mine in April this year”, he stated.
