-- When a patch of land on the edge of
Nweneso No. 1 village was bought by a Ghanaian who said he
wanted to search for gold, few residents objected. Then dozens
of Chinese moved in with excavators, wrecking farmland and
turning the local stream into a trickle of mud.
“The Chinese destroyed our land and our river, they are
sitting there with pick-ups and guns, plenty of guns,” Maxwell
Owusu, acting chief of the village in the central Ashanti
region, said last month. “They operate big machines and it
makes it very difficult to reclaim the land for farming when
they are done.”
As global gold prices climb amid economic uncertainty in
Europe, Ghana is facing an influx of illegal small-scale miners
from China using machinery villagers say they can’t afford. The
operations are raising concern over environmental damage in
Africa’s second-biggest gold producer and sparking anger among
Ghanaians who say they sold their farmland without knowing
Chinese gold miners would move into camps nearby.
When the Chinese miners are preparing to depart to sell
their gold in Ashanti regional capital, Kumasi, they fire their
weapons into the air to ward off potential highway robbers,
Owusu said.
The inspector-general of police set up a committee in
August with the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Minerals
Commission to investigate illegal mining. About 20 Chinese
miners arrested without residential and work permits will be
tried soon, said Frank Koffi, operations director of the
Criminal Investigation Department. Thirty-eight were deported
last month, China’s embassy in Ghana said in a statement on its
website dated Sept. 30.

‘Environmental Devastation’

“The involvement of the Chinese has changed the dynamic of
small-scale mining,” Toni Aubynn, head of the Ghana Chamber of
Mines, said in an interview in the capital, Accra. “They use
bulldozers, pay loaders and really heavy machinery. They have in
fact mechanized artisanal mining and as a result the level of
environmental devastation is huge.”
The biggest gold companies operating in Ghana are Greenwood
Village, Colorado-based Newmont Mining Corp., which is
developing its second mine in the country, and Johannesburg’s
AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. and Gold Fields Ltd. The price of gold
more than doubled since 2008. Gold for immediate delivery traded
0.4 percent lower at $1,774 an ounce at 3:03 p.m. in London.
Small-scale mining is reserved for Ghanaian nationals as
the law allows foreigners only to provide goods and services to
Ghanaian miners. Chinese-made gold mining equipment has quickly
become popular in mining towns including Tarkwa, which is near
Ghana’s biggest gold mine, run by Gold Fields.

Small-Scale Miners

“They haven’t encroached upon our mines yet, but of course
we are aware of the problem because the Chinese operations are
relatively big and it’s clear that they cause a lot of damage,”
Peet van Schalkwyk, executive vice president for West African
operations at Gold Fields, said in an interview in Tarkwa on
Sept. 14.
About 30 percent of Ghana’s total output is produced by an
estimated 1 million small-scale miners who use shovels and
picks, according to the Chamber of Mines, which has asked the
government to tighten industry regulation. Output is expected to
reach 3.9 million ounces in 2013 from 3.6 million ounces this
year, said Benjamin Aryee, chief executive officer of the Ghana
Minerals Commission, the industry regulator.
Often, Ghanaians secure plots of land and partner with
Chinese who have funds to “bring in the bulldozers and all the
other big equipment, and then they go in some sort of working
arrangement with the local miners,” said Aubynn.

Chinese Trade

The Chinese sell small rock-crushing machines, known as
Shang Fa, at about 1,700 cedis ($897) each, and run large
operations in the Ashanti and Western regions, notably on the
Ankobra river, which shows signs of heavy pollution, according
to Van Schalkwyk.
Ghana has a fast-growing Chinese population, with Chinese
shops and restaurants cropping up in the Ashanti Kumasi.
Bilateral trade between the two countries jumped to $3.47
billion last year from $2 billion in 2010, according to the
website of the Chinese Embassy in the capital, Accra.
In July, Chinese men mining near the village of Manso-
Nsiana fired warning shots when residents protested their
presence, Koffi said. He couldn’t confirm a report published in
Accra’s state-owned Daily Graphic newspaper in July that two
Chinese nationals have been killed this year in a mining
dispute.
No one answered the phone at the Chinese embassy in Accra
when calls were made last month and Oct. 5. A request made in
person to speak with the secretary of the ambassador was
declined on Sept. 18. A written request to speak with the
ambassador, delivered at the embassy on Sept. 20, wasn’t
answered.

Muddy Pits

In Nweneso No. 1, two separate groups of Chinese men
arrived “led by Ghanaians” about three months ago, acting
chief Owusu said. They set up wooden barracks on the edge of the
village, barred entry with a bamboo pole and used excavators to
unearth muddy pits of at least 10 acres (4 hectares) each in
what used to be palm-oil and cocoa plantations.
In Nweneso No. 2, the adjacent village that’s connected by
a bumpy, unpaved road, young men used sticks and machetes to
chase away a small group of Chinese miners who had shown
interest in the area, Tony Yeboah-Asare, the head of the village
assembly, said in an interview.

Enforcement Agencies

“We will do everything to protect our land from the
Chinese,” he said, preparing to plaster walls and electricity
poles with warning notices from the Minerals Commission
explaining that land is not to be bought or sold without
government approval.
Better checks on visa applications and cooperation by local
residents with law enforcement agencies is needed, Foreign
Affairs Minister Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni told reporters on Sept.
20.
“In some areas, there is some kind of unholy alliance
between some of these aliens and our own citizens,” he said.
The illegal mining “is affecting our environment in a very
deleterious way and we need to work hard to stamp it out.”