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Cardinal Peter Appiah-Turkson, Chairman of the Ghana Peace Council, on Thursday urged mining companies to pay more attention to the needs of communities where they operate in order to forestall conflicts. "If you take a piece of land from that old woman, you deprive her of job and livelihood and so appropriate measures must be put in place to make life worthwhile for these people", he added. Cardinal Appiah-Turkson said this when he led a five-member delegation of the Council to pay a courtesy call on the Deputy Regional Minister, Ms Betty Bosomtwi-Sam at his office in Sekondi. The delegation, which had spent four-working days in the region, toured some of the mining communities and companies to interact with them as part of their fact-finding mission. He said the group would also conduct a similar exercise at Brong Ahafo and Ashanti regions as well as other mining areas affected by land and employment disputes. A final report will be submitted to government on the mission. Cardinal Appiah-Turkson was happy that the Nsuta mining companies had lived with the communities in harmony over the years and called on others to follow the example. He noted that the Council as part of effort to strengthen relationship with districts and regional offices was drafting a bill to give them a legal backing. Cardinal Appiah-Turkson intimated that their operation was in tandem with provisions in the New Partnership for Africa Development (NEPAD) agreements, which enjoin member countries to be architects for peace. Ms Bosomtwi-Sam lauded the Council's work and urged it to continue to preach peace in areas affected by such disputes.