MINING PRACTICES IN GHANA

WE, members of the Ghana Union of Stockholm, unequivocally condemn the wanton exploration of the natural resources of the Republic of Ghana without due regard to environmental controls and consequent health hazards to the people and citizens of Ghana from the exploratory methods used by the multinational mining companies operating in the country.

The February 18th, 2003 documentary captioned “Uppdrag Granskning” on the Swedish National Television (SVT 1) which highlighted and indeed exposed the unethical methods of mineral exploration or rather exploitation in Ghana deserves our fullfledged appreciation for the bold journalistic work whilst at the same time it has aroused our total anger and indignation towards the Mining Companies having concessions and operating in the Republic of Ghana on one hand for shirking their corporate social responsibility; and the Government of Ghana on the other hand for its failure to protect the interests of the good people of Ghana by not strenuously ensuring and enforcing the environmental regulations in the country.

The Ghana Union of Stockholm will like to remind the following Swedish companies; Sandvik, Atlas Copco AB and Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB), to recognise their corporate responsibilities towards both the environment and the community in their various roles as either suppliers of mining equipments or investors and perhaps employers.

They ought to promote the importance of environmental protection and improvement and for that matter they must demand from their customer-companies that in their quest to do business and reap profits, they have to pursue the best environmental practices as exist elsewhere in the rich industrialised countries in even the so-called Third World countries such as Ghana. The documentary showed vividly a violation of and guilt to chapters 13-19 of the Swedish Environmental Code. (Ref: “allm?nfarliga brott BRB 13 kap”).

The Ghana Union affably recommends the Editorial and Reporting staff of the programme “Uppdrag Granskning”, especially their team of journalists and informants both in Sweden and in Ghana for their heroic and investigative work. They persevered under life-threatening circumstances and hazardous working atmosphere to unearth those catastrophic mining activities where entire communities have their only source of drinking water polluted with possible carcinogenic materials by companies whose only concerns are to maximise accruing profits in whatever way possible and under a government or governments who are so shamefully paralyzed in their negotiations and “noble” endeavours to entice foreign capital and multinational or multilateral investments into Ghana . The Ghana Union hopes that “UPPDRAG GRANSKNING” will re-visit that scenerio in the not too far-off future to check on whatever efforts have been made to change the current despicable situation. Be assured of the unflinching support of the Ghana Union of Stockholm.

The Ghana Union strongly urges the Government of the Republic of Ghana to live up to its constitutional obligation of safeguarding the health and security needs of all the people and communities in Ghana by upholding and ensuring strict adherence to Ghana’s code of environmental and ethical regulations. The Government of Ghana must insist on quality, safety and care for the environment when granting mining and other concessions to prospecting companies and it must be more than willing at all times to take appropriate measures against defaulting companies in the supreme interest of providing affordable quality of life to the good and courageous people of the Republic of Ghana. Finally, the Ghana Union of Stockholm will remind all the multinational business companies of OECD’s Principles of Corporate Governance pertaining specifically to environmental preservation, environmental conservation and environmental management.

Francis Adomako Boamah President