Anwiam, a small farming community of about 300 people in Obuasi East district is demanding a total resettlement from the devastating impacts of the operations of AngloGold Ashanti, Obuasi mine.
With grief and anguish, the chief and opinion leaders of the town stormed Aseda Fm, an obuasi-based radio station to pour out their decades of unsolved predicament allegedly meted on them through the activities of the mine.
“My people are calling on Anglogold Ashanti to build us new homes and compensate us for our lands taken over by the mine. He further proposed that if the mine will allocate some of their abandoned quarters at Wawasi to them, they would gladly accept”, he suggested.
The traditional leader traces their woes to the surface mining done by the then Ashanti Goldfields corporation in and around their village, which affected life and livelihoods.
“Our lands and source of drinking water were destroyed through their operations which made the mine extend their pipe-borne water to us but for the lands, we lost it with little or no compensation” the chief recounts soberly.
When the news team visited the “dead” town, few people were going about their normal duties. They tell the news team, life has become unbearable because of the lack of jobs and recreation.
The Chief strongly believes and alleges that most of them are experiencing a varied degree of health problems and they suspect, it’s the poisonous air they inhale from the mine.
ABOUT THE MINE
AngloGold Ashanti, an international gold mining company with a globally diverse, high-quality portfolio of operations and projects, is headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. AngloGold Ashanti Limited is a global gold mining company. It was formed in 2004 by the merger of AngloGold and the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. It is now a global gold producer with 21 operations on four continents. The company is listed on the New York, Johannesburg, Accra, London and Australian stock exchanges, as well as the Paris and Brussels bourses.
1 comment
Is long overdue for this demand. AGA should have considered this resettlement way back as 1980s.
This village sits on an old tailings dam…and right at the base of waste rock dump at cudor Rump.
MCE, and all stake holders must see this as very needful.