The leadership of Fish Farmers Association in the Tono North Municipality, Ahafo Region, have expressed worry that the emergence of Newmont Ghana Gold Limited (NGGL) in their area is a great threat to their sustainable socio-economic livelihoods.
According to Mr. Ahmed Saiid Addai, Chairman of the Association which mostly comprise of both male/female youths across Yamfo, Afrisipakrom, Susuanso Terchire, and Adrobaa (YASTA), he noted that they could harvest more than 90 tons of cat fish and tilapia every month.
“But because of Newmont Ghana Gold Limited’s claim of moratorium placement on our lands since 2017 and subsequent refusal to pay us our due and adequate compensation packages, we are heading towards losing our means of survival”.
Mr Addai
Mr. Addai bemoaned “Newmont is rather coming to end our businesses and greatly do us more harm than good”.
“This situation is a great threat to our economic stability and thus social lives because it will be become extremely difficult to afford even quality education for our children and wards”.
Mr. Addai
Mr. Addai demanded that, “discussion to keep our fish farming businesses running must clearly be concluded by replacing our fish ponds with new ones before resettlement so that we wouldn’t go poor after sacrificing our properties for the mining company”.
On his part, Mr. John Eric Bediako, the Association’s Secretary expressed worry that the YASTA fish farming business had created more than 600 direct and 1000 indirect jobs to people in those five communities and the new development could render them unemployed.
Meanwhile, the farmers (fish pond owners) were excluded from the 1,600 employees of the fish farming business. Mr. Bediako mentioned. However, he stated that NGGL has not considered it necessary to engage the leadership of the Association to disclose plans of an arrangement pertaining to the job security of those employees.
Mr. Bediako, therefore, is appealing “to our traditional authorities, Dr., Freda Prempeh, the Member of Parliament, Mr. Samuel Abu Jinapor, the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for their immediate intervention so that our required compensation packages will be paid with further arrangements for us to remain in business”.
Additionally, he suggested that the NGGL Ahafo North Mine would only employ a total of 1800 workers; about 1,300 casual laborers, and the remaining number as permanent staff from the five communities. He complained that it is a clear indication “only a few people would get the opportunity of being employed.”
Mr. Bediako further stressed, “that implied we the fish farmers will lose our livelihoods, but we must not be left unemployed”.
Moreover, Mr. Bediako accused Newmont of unfairness in negotiation with them. This, he explained that the company did not take into consideration the life expectancy of the properties on their lands. For example, he stated that landed properties such as cocoa, cashew, mango, oil palm and others like teak and ‘odum’ have been giving them economic benefits for a long time but Newmont failed to factor that into the negotiation.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sampson Owusu, the 2020 Ahafo Regional Best Fish Farmer requested for cemented ponds with dams for frequent water flow to avoid drought to sustain their fish farming businesses if they would be resettled from the company’s concessional areas.
READ ALSO: Gov’t working on retooling Intelligence Agencies- Finance Minister
