It appears that small scale miners, both illegal and legal, operating in the Gbane mining area, are the least worried about the recurrent and unfortunate mining accidents in the area.
Within the last two years, pockets of regrettable and pathetic fatal accidents have occurred in the Gbane mining area.
In April 2017, five illegal miners died after inhaling blast fumes from their underground operations.
Again, on January 23, 2019, sixteen young men perished under the same circumstances with reports indicating that they entered into an illegal mining pit reportedly belonging to one Kwasi Appiah, aka Kwasi Bantama.
However, in both unfortunate incidents, the small-scale miners have always blamed the nearby well-established Shaanxi Mining Ghana Limited and its concession owners-the Yenyeya and Pubortaaba, saying the blast fumes have often emitted from their underground blasts.
But management of the Shaanxi Mining Ghana Limited strongly maintained that the deceased persons were not their workers but illegal intruders who managed to enter their pit using entry and operation point of a pit belonging to Kwasi Bantama.
In 2017, then Sector Minister, John-Peter Amewu suspended the operations of the Shaanxi Mining Ghana Ltd and partners following the tragic accident.
However, after a fact-finding visit to the operational area of the company, he reopened the mine and instructed that all those illegal mining pits that had connected their operations to the underground tunnels of the Shaanxi company be immediately sealed off to avert any future occurrence.
Unfortunately, the instruction was not honoured.
It was discovered that in June 2018, following the resurgence of unbearable intrusions into the Shaanxi underground by illegal miners, the Upper East Regional Security Council (REGSEC) together with Senior Inspectors of the Minerals Commission identified and locked up 11 illegal mining pits, and further warned these owners and kingpins to desist from reopening these locked-up pits.
The intervention did not see the light of day as the piqued miners broke the padlocks without recourse to REGSEC and the Minerals Commission directives.
By August 2018, the pits were back in business, with resurging reports of mine accidents with the January fatality being the heaviest blow to have hit the community.
In the wake of the January accident, the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Kwaku Asomah-Kyeremeh, instituted a committee to investigate and establish lasting solutions to the decade-old problem in the mining area.
Before the committee could commence work, a group calling itself ‘Concerned Citizens of Talensi’ challenged the objectivity of the team which had the Acting Chief Inspector of Mines as the leader, together with some other Senior Inspectors of Mines.
The group constituted their own team seeking to be part of the Minister’s investigation team, a request that could not be supported by the statutes governing such investigations.
They decided to take to the media to wage war against the process, hinting they weren’t going to accept whatever findings and recommendations that would come out of the committee’s work.
With very high expectations for the report, which many people want to be made public, a letter sighted and addressed to the Upper East Regional Minister from the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources indicated a ‘PLANNED CLOSURE OF ILLEGAL MINING PITS AND SHAFTS WITHIN THE GBANE MINING SITE’.
In the letter dated 19th February 2019, the Sector Minister indicated that he has received the ‘’final report of the Inspectorate Division of the Minerals Commission tasked to investigate the cause of the accident that claimed lives of our youths within the Gbane mining area in the Upper East Region on the 23rd January 2019…’’
It also instructed that ‘’the following pits are to be filled: –
- Kwesi Appiah (Kwesi Bantama)
- Kofi Macho
- Abacazor Dani (aka Taller); and
- Bolgatanga District Officer (Inspectorate Division of the Minerals Commission) to scout around Gbane to identify additional/ any other illegal pits which need to be sealed.’’
In the letter, the Minister further expresses sadness about the fact that some illegal miners are still operating within those same illegally dug shafts which led to the unwarranted deaths on 23rd January and to avert any recurrence, directs that such pits be back-filled, closed and capped (cemented on top).
The letter scheduled 8th March as the day for the filling to commence using waste rock from the Shaanxi mining company and other front-end leaders. It was to be supervised by the Minerals Commission, Military, Police and the Talensi District Assembly.
When most stakeholders heard of this impending exercise, they were happy of the opinion that at last, a permanent solution was being adopted to avert any other future ‘mass killing’ of youth of the area.
It was expected that, majority of those who have been accusing the Shaanxi Mining Ghana Limited and its operations would have heartily welcomed the idea to save lives.
However, those illegal miners cited in the Minister’s letter whose pits are scheduled to be filled, acted with supersonic speed through an ex-parte application on the 5th of March 2019 and secured an Order for Interlocutory Injunction from a Bolgatanga High Court restraining the Defendants/Respondents- the Attorney General, Minerals Commission and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources from ‘’closing, sealing of the shafts and the illegal pits of the applicants’’- Kwasi Appiah and 2 others.
Many are wondering why Kwasi Appiah, in whose pit both tragic accidents occurred would dare the Ministry and the Commission knowing sufficiently he and his ‘boys’ have no licence to operate the pit which is located in the Yenyeya mining Enterprise’s 25-acre concession.
Many also wonder whether they were clothed with the capacity to initiate such action since they hold no licences to the areas where their pits are and to be closed.
After the demise of the 16 people in January, many small-scale miners who strongly accused the Shaanxi Mining Ghana Limited have taken different twists openly rejecting the permanent closure of the very pits that claimed the lives of their brothers.
To show their love for their departed brothers, some of these miners and some concerned citizens planned staging what has been reported to be a ‘massive demonstration’ against the Shaanxi Mining company.
However, their current disposition towards this permanent solution being introduced by the Minister leaves much to be desired.
Of what essence will the demonstration be if they are the same miners and citizens being strongly opposed to solutions that seek to avert any future occurrence of this nasty accidents?
On the 4th of February 2019, family members of the victims of the mining disaster in Gbane, in a press conference addressed by Mr. Zumah Tiroug J. Yaro, called for victims of the disaster to be adequately compensated by ‘’their employees, institutions and groups that matter’’.
They also stated that ‘’all non-natives who are using the deaths of our beloved ones to create confusion among natives and traditional rulers should desist fomenting troubles, or else, we will take action against them. Paramount in their calls was that ‘’all illegal miners and settlers should vacate the area to avoid any confrontations by aggrieved members of the community’’.
It is feared that those miners acting strongly against the regulatory bodies have no bearing with the bereaved families and are on a frolic of their own.
All their actions are to deter the Minerals Commission and the Ministry from sanitizing the area, an activity which may put the largely illegal operators in the area out of business.
The bereaved families are simply not represented in the groups crying for these pits not to be closed.
In a press release recently issued by the Concerned Citizens of Talensi, Acting President of the Small-Scale Miners in the Upper East Region, Mr. Robert Tampoare, loudly cried out for the operations of the Shaanxi Mining Ghana limited to be stopped too, in his opinion, to cease the repetitive accidents in the area.
However, in a rather dramatic incomprehensible twist, the leader of the small-scale miners is rather actively supporting these illegal miners whose pits have been identified and billed for closure to save the very lives he has been trying to protect.
Some legalised small-scale mining groups have distanced themselves from the jumbled position of their Acting President Robert Tampoare, and are clearly of the opinion that those illegal pits that have claimed lives of the youth must be closed up.
The Obuasi and Gbandanyire Small Scale Mining Groups have cautioned Mr. Tampoare and his group to desist from using their groups names to continue to fight regulatory institutions since their objective was nothing more than one that sought to satisfy their own interests in perpetuating illegal mining in the Gbane mining area.
For many stakeholders, it is high time an eternal solution was found to what is almost becoming an annual ritual of deaths of miners in the area.
However, it is becoming apparent that the miners themselves are not interested in same since they engage in these intrusions to make ends meet.
However, it has been the repeated chorus of the Shaanxi Mining company that, to redeem its waning image and clear herself from the numerous accusations, those illegal intruders have to be flushed off their concessions.
The Public and key stakeholders are watching how firm the state shall stick to these recommendations to save the lives of other innocent miners even in the midst of these fierce legal oppositions.
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By: Frederick Awuni/citinewsroom.com/Ghana