Newmont says it is not exhuming bodies

Koforidua, Aug 19, GNA - Newmont Ghana, a gold mining company, has denied allegations that the company was forcing residents of Yaayaso out of their settlement and at the same time taking possession of their cemetery and exhuming bodies.

Mr Oduro-Kwarteng Marfo, the External Relations Manager for the Akyem Project, said Yaayaso was too close to the mine and it was not environmentally good for the residents to remain there.

“That is why we are resettling Yaayaso community and since we have not finished their resettlement packages, we cannot tell them to leave the place and moreover, we have no intention to exhume any dead body,” he said.

Mr Oduro-Kwarteng said this at Koforidua when management of the Akyem Project briefed the media about the project.

He said Newmont was still constructing a resettlement package of 220 houses for the Yaayaso community and that they might be completed by late 2012.

Twenty-four of the houses have been completed as at now.

He said Newmont Ghana had compensated all those whose property had been affected by the operations of the company.

“It is just that while others use the money for profitable ventures, others also mismanage theirs thereby making them live poorer.”

“We are doing everything possible to minimize the poor living standards of people and to maximize their comfort living” he said.

Mr Mr Oduro-Kwarteng mentioned some social interventions the company had provided to the New Abirim area as school buildings, libraries, nurses’ quarters, hospital wards and maternity wards.

The company had also, in partnership with Ghana Highway Authority, instituted road safety measures to prevent accidents in the area.

He said the company had donated security vehicles, motor bikes among others to fight crime in the area, adding that, it is in the company’s plan to build police barracks for the area.

Mr Oduro-Kwarteng disclosed that determining the actual voice of the people at New Abirim was difficult and “it is a challenge since anybody at all picks a phone and calls a radio station and give negative reports about us.”

He added that some landlords rent out their properties to other people when they had already been compensated by the company, thereby creating a feud between Newmont and those “supposed” tenants.

He stressed that Newmont Ghana had come to stay and to work amicably with the people and not to affect them negatively.