BISHOPS CONFERENCE COMMENDS NEWMOUNT (PAGE 40)

THE Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC) has commended the management and staff of Newmont Ghana Gold Limited (NGGL) for the mutual understanding between both the expatriate workers and their Ghanaian colleagues working at the Ahafo Mine of the company in the Asutifi District of the Brong Ahafo Region.
The GCBC also observed with satisfaction the discipline that the workers exhibited at the mine site, and gave the assurance that the bishops would continue to pray towards the successful operation of the mine.
The Accra Metropolitan Archbishop of the Catholic Diocese, Most Reverend Gabriel Palmer-Buckle, made the commendation when members of the conference took time off their 29th Plenary Assembly meeting currently going on at Goaso in the Asunafo North District to pay a visit to the NGGL Ahafo mine site at Ntotroso.
Led by its President, Most Reverend Lucas Abadamloora, who is also the Bishop of the Navrongo/Bolgatanga Diocese, the members, including Cardinal Peter Appiah-Turkson, were briefed by Mr Dan V. Michaelsen, the General Manager of Environment and Social Responsibility of the NGGL, and Mr Steve Baffoe, Communications Manager of the company, about the operations of the mine.
Speaking on behalf of the group after touring the plant site, Archbishop Palmer-Buckle said “Our visit has been very useful, and we thank the management and staff for such a kind hospitality”.
“We are proud of what you are doing here, most especially, with the existing co-operation among the entire workforce and we encourage you to continue with such a mutual understanding”, he emphasised. The Archbishop observed that God had endowed Ghana with a lot of natural resources, including gold as well as flora and fauna, and therefore needed to be thanked exceedingly.
According to the Metropolitan Archbishop, Ghana in Arabic means “God has A New Agenda” and that was why he decided to bless the people with a lot of natural resources.
Archbishop Palmer -Buckle, however, stated that what needed to be done now was to take very good care of those endowments.
The bishops commended the management of the company for realising the need to protect the flora and fauna at the site, adding that if they destroyed them, posterity would suffer most.
In a welcoming address, the General Manager of NGGL, Mr Michaelsen, said, 1,828 people were working in the company as permanent staff, adding that Ahafo alone had employed 1,562 people, out of which 987 were Ghanaians, with 498 from the local community with 77 expatriate workers.
According to the general manager, Newmont had invested in excess of $500 million in the Ahafo Mine, adding that since July 2006, the company had paid to the government over $23 million in royalties.
He said last year, the company disbursed about 55 per cent of its revenue totalling $180 million in Ghana with $148 million of the amount going to vendors, $21 million to employees and $19 million to the government.