<<Print>>

Management of Newmont Ghana Limited, has debunked allegations that it is mining gold illegally at its Akyem concession. Mr Oduro-Kwarteng Marfo, Communication and External Relations Manager of Newmont, Akyem Mine, said this when he addressed journalists on the company�s operations in Koforidua. He said the company attained all the necessary regulative requirements that enabled it to go into full-scale mining in November 2013, and that the allegation that it was engaged in galamsey was not true. Mr Marfo explained that apart from the ratification of a mining lease which is still in process, Newmont Akyem received approval for its Environmental Impact Assessment from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2008. He said the company obtained approval for mining lease and mining area in 2010 for which it started full mining operation from November 2013 to date. �Once the Minerals Commission or the Sector Minister gives mining lease and mining area, it empowers a company to do mining, because that approval goes with certain conditions that demand the start of mining within a certain period,� he said. Mr Marfo claimed that, the ratification of a mining lease was not a yardstick to argue or to assert that Newmont Akyem operated illegally. He said Newmont Ghana, as the second largest mining company in the world, was too responsible a company to do things anyhow, and therefore called for a truce on that fallacy.