Anglogold to invest more in Obuasi site

Pg 55. Thursday May 22/08

Story: Rebecca Quaicoe Duho

ANGLOGOLD Ashanti (AGA) will this year inject a total of $44 million into its Obuasi site as a ‘turnaround strategy’ to help address operational and human resource issues that are restricting the site from producing to its full capacity.
The injection of fresh capital into the operations of the site, which will be implemented over a period of three years, has become necessary as the company is said to be under-performing operationally and financially at the Obuasi mines.
The Managing Director of the Obuasi Mine, Mr John Millar, who made this known at the seventh AngloGold Ashanti Business roadshow in Accra on Monday, said “Obuasi’s gold production is too low to cover its cost, AGA has committed an additional $44 million to Obuasi to address the operational and human resources issues that are restricting Obuasi’s production”.
The roadshow, which brought together chiefs and opinion leaders from the Obuasi and Iduapriem sites of the company and stakeholders, was aimed at explaining to them some of the achievements and difficulties of the company over the last three months and also to listen to some of the concerns of the people in the communities.
According to Mr Millar, the amount would complement the site’s initial overhead expenditure of US$130 million estimated for this year.
He said the Obuasi site was also systematically addressing a number of environmental challenges, many of which he said had arisen from the past and made mention of environmental clean-up, water management and the rehabilitation and closure of old mines as some of the company’s challenges.
As part of its social responsibilities, he said, the site had since last year committed a total of $582,272 into social activities with a total of $406,941 going into malaria control, $162, 422 for general community development such as water, infrastructure, services and community projects, while education received $2,728 with $10,181 going into festivals, funerals and traditional rites.
He also mentioned the establishment of a local garment factory at Obuasi in February, 2008 with 40 workers and which he said produced overalls for purchase by the company and currently had a contract to supply 10,000 overalls.
He mentioned other projects as a piggery project for the Obuasi community, a mortuary, a brick factory and the proposal for the establishment of a Community Trust Fund with a seed capital of GH¢ 237,000.00.
The Managing Director of the Iduapriem site of the company, Mr David Renner, who also gave an overview of the operations of the mines in the Western Region, said the site had since the first quarter of this year paid royalties to the tune of $2.4 million.
He said since January, 2008, the company had awarded 16 scholarships to the tune of GH¢3,813.27 to students and provided teachers with incentive packages.
The Vice-President of the West Africa Division of AngloGold Ashanti, Mr Christian Rampa Luhembwe, said the activities of illegal miners was impacting negatively on the mining business in the country and beyond.
Illegal mining referred to as ‘galamsey’, according to Mr Luhembwe, was taking over the gold mining business in the country especially at Obuasi and he described the aggressiveness of galamsey operators at the Obuasi mines as one that needed a concerted effort of all stakeholders to help curb.
He said the security agencies had not done much to help stop the situation and therefore called on all to help find better ways of dealing with the issue.