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Golden Star Resources launches safety week, declares zero tolerance for injuries
Workers of the Prestea mine demonstrating safety measures at the forum

Golden Star Resources launches safety week, declares zero tolerance for injuries

Golden Star Resources Limited (GSR) has launched a safety campaign at Bogoso in the Western Region that aims at making safety at its two operations a lifestyle among employees.

The safety week has consequently been institutionalised as an annual event that will promote safety among the workforce through competitions and other activities.

It was under the theme ‘Never forget, never again; use safety as a tool.'

The launch also marked the inauguration of a cenotaph in honour of 120 miners that died in the life of the more than 130-year old mine.

The deaths occurred between 1954 and 2013, with only three happening under the current owners, Golden Star.

While the fatality level under the company is “enviable,” the Mining Operations Manager at the Golden Star (Prestea/Bogoso) Limited, Mr Jerry Agala, said the company targets a “zero tolerance for injuries while fatalities have no room in our dictionary.”

He said the company is working to ensure that the conditions that directly or indirectly contributed to the fatalities will not be allowed to reoccur.

 

“This is the only way we can truly honour our fallen heroes that their demise is not in vain,” he said at the event that was attended by staff, opinion leaders in the Prestea Huni Valley District and government officials.

He thus advised the staff to ensure that the slogans do not “remain mere rhetoric but constant reminders to us all that be it underground or surface, we will work safely.”

This, he said calls for a change in attitude towards ensuring that fatalities do not occur again.

 

Prayer competition
The names of the 120 deceased, which the company refers to as heroes, have been engraved in gold on three sides of the cenotaph – an effigy of a miner in working gear that has been superimposed on a rectangular bust.

The fourth side has been left empty and will be filled with names of staff, who will excel at a prayer competition that will run till December, this year.
The prayer is expected to be a daily routine among the miners after which a panel of judges will select the best prayer for the name to be inscribed on the cenotaph.

 

 

Education on galamsey
The Chief Executive Officer of GSR, Mr Sam Coetzer, said the introduction of the safety week was a testament of the company’s commitment to doing the right things right all the time.

As a mining company with global presence, Coetzer said Golden Star had put in place adequate measures that will ensure that mining at the Bogoso and Prestea mines were devoid of incidents that could lead to injuries and fatalities.
As part of the safety campaign, the CEO said the GSR board had approved a safe mining campaign that will target school children.

The idea, he said, was to ensure that children are properly abreast with safe mining techniques even as they grow up.

He said this will help reduce the menace that illegal mining is posing to the country, the communities and the perpetrators, he said.

 

While admitting that it was virtually impossible to change the minds of adults on illegal mining, Mr Coetzer said Golden Star “wants to give the children a good start so that if they later decide to take up informal mining, then they will be able to do it right.”

The cenotaph has been named “Sam Coetzer Heroes Square” in recognition of the vision and contribution of the CEO to honouring persons who died in the course of mining.

 

Golden Star owns 90 per cent each in the Wassa Gold Mine and the Prestea Open Pit and Prestea Underground Mine.

Although the Prestea Underground Mine is under rehabilitation, the Prestea Open Pits have been in production since the Third Quarter of 2015.

They were brought into production when Golden Star ceased refractory production at neighbouring Bogoso.

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