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The longstanding disagreement between Sanso community in Obuasi and AngloGold Ashanti over employment seem to have no end in sight.
The community on Wednesday, March 8 organised a protest against the mining company over a plethora of issues, key among them being unemployment.
According to the leader of the protest, Kwabena Ofori, the community has information that AngloGold is preparing to close a mine pit in the community known as Asuokyi, which he said has been the source of livelihood for most of the youth at Sanso.
He alleged that the company claims the presence of the illegal miners from Sanso in Asuokyi poses danger to the survival of the mine, an assertion Mr. Ofori vehemently refutes, claiming that the site has no direct link to AGA’s underground site.
“What AGA is saying is completely false. Asuokyi is not connected to underground. In fact, our forefathers used to mine at Asuokyi long before AGA came to Obuasi. So we want everybody to treat this with a pinch of salt.”
Mr. Ofori further alleged that AngloGold Ashanti has not been fair to the community during recruitment citing instances where members of the community have gone through interviews yet have not heard anything again rendering them unemployed without any means to take care of their families.
He, however, appealed to the Ashanti Region Minister and the Ashanti South Regional Police Commander to swiftly intervene since the community will resist any attempt by AngloGold Ashanti to close the Asuokyi site.
A former Assembly member of Sanso, Samuel Oduro, who spoke with the media, alleged that the company through its activities have polluted their water bodies, destroyed their farmlands and caused all sorts of environmental destruction yet the community has not been fully compensated.
He stressed that the community initially left all mining sites where they have been operating following a plea from AGA to enable the company woo investors into AGA yet after 2016, it has prevented the people from accessing those sites even though some of them have been left unattended to by AGA.
“We want to send this signal to AngloGold Ashanti and all those involved, we won’t leave the Asuokyi site. This is our source of livelihood, our means of survival, leaving here means we are going to die. We won’t leave.”
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