'Artificial Famine' Hits Newmont Ahafo Project Area
Published by MAC on 2005-06-02
'Artificial Famine' Hits Newmont Ahafo Project Area
June 2, 2005
Clement Boateng, Brong Ahafo
We Are Starving - Affected farmers, residents cry out.
Some affected farmers and residents in the Ahafo Project area of Newmont Ghana Gold Limited (especially those at the Ntotoroso resettlement village) are gradually being deprived of one of the indispensable elements that guarantee human existence -'food.'
The affected people are crying because food prices are rising day after day. This 'artificial famine ' in making has been attributed to the presence of Newmont, one of the leading gold mining companies in the World, and its activities.
The company's operations have reduced food production in the area drastically, while the population in the area has doubled, raising the cost of living in the area and adding to the economic woes of the people.
The Chronicle's recent visit to the area to assess how the people, especially the affected farmers and the resettlers were living, found the situation unbearable for the people.
The poor, affected farmers, mostly women who since birth had depended on their farms for food, are today rubbing shoulders with Newmont's affluent workers on the food market, while the meager crop compensation received is finished whilst others are still on the waiting list, either fighting for more reasonable compensation or yet to go through the exasperating bureaucratic process for their compensations.
Almost all the people this reporter interviewed, expressed similar concern about the affordability and availability of food in the area.
Even though they were happy with their new buildings, not because of the sizes but the quality, comparing them with those at their former settlements, the people were much particular about food and the sudden change in their living environment.
A 30-year-old Cecilia Malik (at the Ntotoroso resettlement village) lives with eight other relatives, including her mother in one of the resettlement buildings, which contains two bedrooms, a kitchen (turned a bedroom), toilet and bathroom.
She told this reporter, ' In fact, we are happy with this house because it is made of concrete and roofed with aluminum sheets but comparing it to our old place, this one is too small to contain us; that is why we have turned the kitchen into a room instead.'
Asked what they had missed from their old settlement, she responded ' free food; we were not buying food; we got foodstuffs free from our farms and sometimes sell the surplus for income.' 'We are indeed starving at this place,' she added.
Malik and her family were waiting for the training in soap making, which is one of Newmont's variety vocational courses being organized for the affected farmers.
According to her, the family could not afford the cost of chemicals being used for making batik, tie and dye, besides they were told to choose only one training program and they opted for soap making.
Gyinabu Ali, formerly a hard working farmer who used to enjoy some of the proceeds from her mixed cropping farms, is now a porridge seller making ¢150, 000 (equivalent to $15) a week.
Ali finds her new job tedious because, ' I have to comb round if all the porridge is not bought after selling it in front of my house (at the Ntotoroso resettlement village) and I sell from as early as 6:30 am till this time,' she explained when this reporter reached there around 3: 40pm one Tuesday afternoon.
'I love planting trees and farming, I used to get enough food to feed my family, sometimes I get mushroom for my soup and above all, sell some of the foodstuffs for money,' Ali expressed how dearly she missed her occupation and its benefits.
Similarly, she complained about difficulties she passes through before her four-member family, including herself, is fed.
'We are facing hunger because we have never bought food since birth until recently when our living environment is changed,' she said.
Ali, a 38-year-old divorcee with five children (two in boarding school in Kumasi at the time of the visit) got a single room with toilet and bathroom without a kitchen, painted in her beloved color 'orange'. Just like Malik's family, it has always been a hell to cook when it rains.
She said her 19-year-old daughter was taking part in the batik, tie and dye making, whilst she waited for the soap-making classes, which were yet to begin at the time of filing the story.
But the underlying issue is where to get the capital to implement the skills they would acquire from the various trainings Newmont is organizing for them since most of the people who got crop compensation had finished their monies and are even borrowing money for living.
Most of the affected farmers complained that they have no place to farm again especially in the cases of the above interviewees.
However, some of them also hinted that they had some pieces of land somewhere for farming but their fears were that, they did not know where Newmont's concession ended and that they did not want to make new farms before they were informed that the moratorium had affected their farms, and this was austerely affecting food production in the area.
Others explained that in some places, their unaffected farms and lands are encircled by the company's activities and that it is difficult working on such farms and pieces of land.
Likewise, if care is not taken, the people would not only cry for food but weep also for water very soon because Newmont has started constructing dams in their major rivers such as the Subri River, which is the main source of drinking water for the people in the communities within the river's catchment area.
This means that the communities at the southern part of the river or back of the dam would not get water from the river again because when this reporter visited the place, the southern part of the river had almost dried up and a pipe had been laid from the Tano River, which would supply the dam with additional water.
Only God knows the fate of the fishes and other creatures in the Subri River, both before and at the back of the dam.
The river has began losing its natural value to its inhabitants and other dependants, including the surrounding communities that depended on it as their source of drinking water.