“If I Have My Way, I’ll Stop Mining In Gbani”

“If I have my way, I’ll stop mining in Gbani. We have not benefitted anything from the Chinese people ever since they came to mine here,” says Elisabeth, one of many dissenting voices in Gbani, a mining community in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region of Ghana.

With such a rocky topography, farming as the main source of livelihood in this village is a difficult task, considering the fact that farm implements used by locals are very rudimentary. The largest piece of land one can cultivate is less than three acres, checks by Savannahnews revealed during a recent visit to the area.

After the rainy season, a greater percentage of young people in Gbani travel to the southern part of the country in search of greener pastures. The remaining ones engage in galamsey,   illegal mining– which is one of the few sources of making money aside shea butter processing. 

According to Elisabeth, ever since the Shanxi Mining Company came to Gbani to search for gold, the locals have not been spared the daily air and noise pollutions caused by extreme blasting accompanied with earth-tremors that caused fear and panic amongst them.

“Thick black smoke and dusts come out from the pit after every blast and engulf the whole community. We don’t know what we’re breathing in…. We fear for our lives because there is no clinic or hospital in this village. Anytime we’re sick, we travel to Datuku or Tongo….20 kilometres to treat ourselves”, she said in a chat with this reporter.

The coming of the Chinese mining firm, Shanxi– into Gbani for about seven years now, has led to simmering tension among some locals as well as between locals and the company. There have been a few disturbances in the past leading to the arrest of some people, all because of the mining activities.

The National Coalition on Mining (NCOM) together with its local partners in the Northern Sector led by Zasilari Ecological Farms Project (ZEFP) and Tuona Pogaba Women (TUPACO) is currently engaging with regulating bodies such as the Minerals Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that the emerging environmental problems in Gbani are addressed.

Issifu Sulemana Jobila who represents ZEFP told Savannahnews in an interview that, under no circumstances should inhabitants of Gbani suffer any environmental problems as a result of mining activities carried out by either galamsey operators or multinationals.

According to him, the air and noise pollution situation if not checked, could lead to serious health implications in the near future and urged the Talensi District Assembly as well as the various regulating bodies to take charge in order to ensure that the proper thing is done.

Meanwhile, a Human Resource Manager of Shanxi Joseph Anokye in sharing his personal views on developments between the community and the company, said Shanxi since it started operations has sunk ten boreholes for inhabitants of Gbani, donated seventy desktop computers to some government institutions and 114 classroom furniture to St. Anthony School.

He however, lamented that, but for a legal dispute regarding how compensations should be paid for land claimed by the company as a result of the mining concession acquired, a lot of development projects would have been provided for the people under its corporate social responsibility programme. 

Mr. Anokye appealed to all the inhabitants of Gbani to come together for a peaceful resolution of any dispute between them and Shanxi so that the company can provide them with more social amenities.