By Yussif Ibrahim
Kumasi, Nov.18, GNA – Community-Based Organisations and some residents in oil and gold mining affected communities have shared harrowing experiences on human rights and environmental abuses at a stakeholders’ meeting in Kumasi.
The meeting, which was put together by the Network for Women’s Rights and Environmental Governance (NEWREG), sought to bring together grassroot organisations in the extractive sector to discuss and develop resistance strategies for common advocacy.
“Formulating Common Agenda for Improved Policy and Advocacy in the Extractive Sector”, was the theme for the meeting with funding from the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA) through the Global Greengrants Fund (GGF).
The meeting also discussed girls’ rights, livelihood destruction, environmental pollution, biodiversity destruction and climate change because of oil and gold mining operations.
The exploitations of mineral resources in Ghana, particularly gold, oil, gas and quarry usually involve physical and economic displacement of communities, which mostly result in significant negative environmental and socio-economic impacts and human rights abuses.
It was against this background that NEWREG provided a platform for key stakeholders to share their experiences on how activities of mining and oil firms are negatively affecting their livelihoods.
A participant from the Eastern Region during the meeting recounted how a renowned mining company callously took over his farmland without compensation.
He said his house was also pulled down by the company after he rejected their resettlement terms, leaving him and his family homeless.
“They threw out all my belongings before pulling down the house while I was away on the farm. That day we had to sleep in a makeshift structure in our farm,” he narrated.
Other participants also spoke about how operations of mining and oil firms were polluting the environment and putting the lives of people in their catchment areas at risk.
According to them, some of the companies were also reneging on their corporate social responsibilities to the communities.
Participants from fishing communities also raise concerns about oil spillage and its devastating effects on aquatic life and the economic fortunes of fishers.
They also spoke about the health risks of consumers of fish due to the usage of certain dangerous chemicals by some fishermen in their quest for bumper harvest.
Mrs. Emelia Konadu Kyeremeh, Chairperson of NEWREG, said the meeting was to discuss challenges confronting communities in mining and oil exploration areas and develop strategies to advocate for their rights.
She said it was disheartening that despite the negative impact of the operations of the companies on the communities, indigenes were also crowded out of job opportunities.
She, therefore, called on the Government and its relevant agencies who oversee those sectors to intervene and end the impunity with which some companies continued to abuse the rights’ people in their catchment areas.
GNA