By Patrick Biddah
The Centre for Public Interest Law, has retreated the need to highlights human right abuses meted out to inhabitants of mining communities.
CEPIL, believes a sustained fight to sensitise these communities, will not only help to equip them to fight for their right, but also help to expose the exploitation of the people by the mining companies.
Additionally, CEPIL, is of the view that government decisions on forcefully acquiring lands of farmers in the event of a ‘ fight’ between mining companies and farmers, should be in the interest of the locals and not foreign mining companies.
Making the analysis at a media workshop for Journalists over the weekend, the Executive Director of CEPIL, Mr Augustus Niber, underscored making the communities benefits more from mining as against the foreign companies.
The workshop, was to amplify the voices of communities affected by mining.
It was to dig deeper into the perspectives and experiences on human rights concerns, governance challenges, and socio-economic impacts of miming companies , particularly Newmont’s mining operations.
Mr Augustine Niber, whose CEPIL partnered with WACAM and OXFAM, stressed that, mining communities continue to face water contamination, land displacement, and deforestation, leading to their worsening socio-economic conditions.
In view of all these, Mr Diber, indicated the need for more advocacy to restore what is due the community.
For example, a documentary which was screened at the workshop, showed how mining companies take undue advantage of the people to take their farmlands in the name of bringing development.
But as it turned out, the promises of building ultra modern residential facilities for the farmers in exchange for their lands, are unfulfilled and in some cases denial of some promises.
In all of these, the documentary revealed how some of the Chiefs and Assembly members, were complicit in short-changing the local farmers.
To address all of these, Mr Niber, called for more sustained fight, in order to derive the needed overall benefit.
He advised against some communities that misunderstand their advocacy to mean that they are rather anti- development.
He re-asserted the significance of miming, particularly gold, saying it remains a key contributor to Ghana’s economy which generated $6.38 billion in foreign exchange earnings in 2022, accounting for 3.9% of GDP.
In a presentation, the Associate Executive Director of WACAM, Mrs. Hannah Owusu-Koranteng, highlighted the long-standing issues of land dispossession, coercion, and environmental destruction by multinational mining companies.
“Human rights violations in mining are not new—they have persisted for decades.Companies continue to coerce people into giving up their lands while promising development that never fully materializes,” she stated.
The history of these long standing abuses, she pointed out, should be a rallying call for all stakeholders to be relentless in the fight.