The District Security Council (DISEC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have closed down Adamus Resource Limited (ARL), a mining company operating in Anwia, a farming community in the Ellembelle District of the Western Region until further notice.
Information available to the paper indicates that the Ellembelle DISEC took the decision last Friday following persistent complaints about the blasting activities of the company from members of the community and the Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Armah Kofi Buah. The DISEC meeting was chaired by Daniel Eshun, District Chief Executive (DCE) of the area.
DISEC is made up of heads of security personnel in the District with the political head of the District serving as its Chairman. The task of the DISEC, which sits monthly, is to ensure that there is peace and security in the district. It is also to review security situations in the district and take the necessary action.
Speaking in a telephone interview with the paper, Mr. Daniel Eshun confirmed that it was the Ellembelle DISEC which ordered that the mining company should be closed down until further notice. He hinted that the decision has been communicated to Paul Evans Aidoo, the Western Regional Minister, who is also the head of the Regional Security Council (REGSEC).
However, The Chronicle can report that it was the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which first took the decision to close down the mining company until all complaints lodged against it had been looked into. In order to settle the matter swiftly, the sector regulatory body has fixed Wednesday, July 22, 2015, as the date to sit on the matter.
It has consequently extended invitation to the Chief of Anwia, Nana Simale Kpanyile, management of Adamus Resource, District Chief Executive of the area, Daniel Eshun and MP for the area to a meeting at the office of the EPA in Accra. A source close to the EPA has confirmed that it was his outfit which ordered that the company should be closed down until the issue has been resolved.
The community members are reported to have had their buildings developing cracks, as well as their electrical gadgets destroyed as a result of the blasting, which was being carried out by the mining company. The negative impact the blasting was having on lives and properties of indigenes of Anwia is what compelled the MP to lodge a complaint at the EPA.
This led the EPA to send a team of experts to the blasting site of the mining company last Monday to have firsthand information about what is going on in the concession. It is believed that the report of the experts, who were sent by the EPA to the blasting site of the mining company, is that which led to the closure of the site.
Nana Simale Kpanyile, Chief of Anwia who spoke to The Chronicle in a telephone interview also confirmed that the mining company has been closed down following orders from both the EPA and DISEC. Nana told this reporter that the decision to close down the mining company was first communicated to him by the officials of the EPA, after which representatives of the DISEC reached him.
Nana also told the reporter that he has been invited to a meeting scheduled to take place on July 22 at the EPA office in Accra in connection with the same issue. Nana Simale Kpanyile further told this reporter that he was glad the EPA has finally put a stop to the company’s blasting activities after a number of petitions he had personally submitted to the regulatory body.
Though he said he was delighted the EPA had finally decided to close down the mining company, he however expected the EPA to do the right thing by ordering the company to compensate the Anwia indigenes for their buildings and electrical gadgets which had been destroyed as a result of the blasting, saying it cannot be quantified.
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