There is looming danger in Tarkwa as local miners ignore warnings to use an old shaft located within Goldfields Ghana’s active mining zone for community mining.
Already, similar shafts taken over in the Akoon community are sinking people’s homes, due to blasting in the underground mines beneath the town.
Some local leaders are also disputing community ownership of the small-scale mining schemes.
Luv FM’s Erastus Asare Donkor has been visiting some of these sites in the Tarkwa community.
The old mining town is dotted with age-old underground shafts.
Two of them, the Fante Mines, an old deep shaft mine on the hilly outskirts of the town, and the Akoon mines have been taken over and converted into government-sanctioned community mining schemes.
A third shaft, the Apinto mines sitting on Goldfields Company’s land, close to Asamang Kakraba, is considered illegal.
It is operated by a chief at Tarkwa.
In 2022, a Tarkwa High Court placed an injunction on their operations there but the order was ignored.
Currently, there are attempts to take over the old Mantraim shaft at Brahabebome which sits in Goldfields Ghana’s active mining zone.
Despite the company’s warning against the move, these individuals and their Chinese collaborators are preparing to turn it into a community mining scheme with government’s support.
All these places bear the tagline, community mining but on the ground, the real ownership and the community share are not clear.
A clear example is the Akoon community mining inaugurated by the Lands Ministry. While the government says the scheme belongs to the community, Unit Committee Chairman, Frank Boham and his executives deny this.
They showed the new team deep cracks in individual homes as a result of blasting from the Akoon community mining scheme.
Requests for responses from the MCE for Tarkwa did not receive any response.
Meanwhile, there are signs of an intended inauguration of more of these community mining schemes in areas designated dangerous by Goldfields Ghana Limited.
Sources at the Goldfields say any attempt to use the Amantrem shaft for a similar community scheme will result in a tragedy.