Government through the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, has given managers of the Bogoso and Prestea Mines, Future Global Resources (FGR), fourteen (14) days to commence payment of salaries owed to workers.
The Ministry said FGR must also complete the payment of all outstanding salaries no later than May 30, 2024.
More than three hundred mine workers from the Bogoso Mine have besieged the premises of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to picket.
The workers are demanding that the Minister terminate the mining lease granted to FGR.
Moreover, they argued that Future Global Resources does not have the wherewithal to manage the mine for three years now, thus all of them have been laid off.
“The truth of the matter is that as far as we are concerned duty bearers must recognize that Future Global Resources does not have the financial resources to manage the mines so the Minister must terminate their contract,” said the General Secretary of the Ghana Mine Workers Union of TUC, Abdul Moomin Gbana, when he addressed a news conference in Accra.
Mining operations halted
The operations of the mine came to a halt in December 2023 due to financial challenges, according to the Lands Ministry.
However, the Lands Ministry, in a statement dated Thursday, April 25, indicated that the company submitted a proposal to restructure the company and raise up to $150 million to pay its creditors and “bring the mine back to life.”
The Ministry further noted that after several consultations, “the government took the view that if the company is able to raise the said capital and inject it into the mine,” adding, “it will be the most efficient means of revamping the mine within the shortest possible time.”
In addition, FGR has been directed to submit evidence, to the satisfaction of the Lands Minister and the Minerals Commission, of financial resources available to pay creditors and operate the mine within one hundred and twenty (120) days.
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The company must also ensure that the mine is “fully operational before the expiration of the said one hundred and twenty (120) days.”
“As part of the conditions for the approval, the Company is, also, to support Government’s Community Mining Scheme by relinquishing part of its concessions in Bogoso and Prestea to be designated as Community Mining Schemes for the people of these two communities,” the statement added.
Read the full statement from the Lands Ministry below:
