Chinese illegal miners wreak havoc at Wassa

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The Chinese aggression to control markets in Africa and gain a foothold on the mineral wealth of the continent, is gaining notoriety, especially in Ghana, as foreign nationals, believed to be Chinese, are taking advantage of the remoteness of the Wassa Amenfi East District, and advertently exploiting the poverty and low illiteracy levels of the surrounding village communities, are engaged in illegal mining activities in the area.

The Chinese nationals engaged in this illegal business, and have no clearly defined corporate structure, have set up camps in Wasa Dikoto, Wassa Adansi and other remote environs, where their activities can hardly be monitored.

This new twist to the Chinese aggression comes at the heels of recent concerns raised by the industry in Ghana about counterfeiting, pirating and the flooding of the Ghanaian market with goods from China, which is fast crippling indigenous businesses.

The most referred to example is the Ghanaian textile industry, which is crumbling to the inferior and cheap fabric from China, with pirated designs from Ghana.

The Executive Director of the Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining WACAM), an advocacy non-governmental organization, Daniel Owusu Koranteng, who gave an insight as to the level of environmental degradation by the Chinese to this paper, intimated that the activities of these illegal miners had created serous negative environmental and social problems in communities which mostly lack the capacity to challenge these Chinese, who have the strong backing of some Ghanaians, who serve as front men for them.

He indicated that the mining activities had led to the pollution of the Ankobra River which serves as the drinking water for most of the communities, thus denying the communities access to good drinking water.

Mr. Koranteng disclosed that the miners had destroyed a lot of properties and farms, adding that since these miners had no corporate structure, the people whose farms were destroyed have no avenues to negotiate compensations as required by the mining laws of the country.

Information gathered by the paper from the affected communities, indicate that a farmer with 4 acres of cocoa farm, was paid a ridiculous amount of GH¢90 as compensation for destroying his farm, while mining activities were currently going on in the cocoa farm of one Daniel Ahorku, a farmer in the Wasa Amenfi East District.

Mr. Koranteng has however called on the government to set up full scale investigations into the activities of these illegal miners, to bring to book the culprits, and to help end further degradation of the environment.