‘Protect local interest in negotiating mining contracts’

The Director of WACAM, a civil Society group in the mining sector, Mr Daniel Owusu Koranteng, has said that the power imbalance that occurs during negotiating of mining contracts is  a key issue that needed to be addressed. 

He alleged that mostly after licences are issued, communities are left to their fate to negotiate the terms with multinational mining companies, even though these communities lacked the capacity to do so. 

Consequently,  the communities give their social license only for them to realise after about three years that their lands are gone, very small compensation has been paid, their rivers  polluted but then the companies insist there was a negotiation. 

“When the nation opens up too much for big mining companies to locate in rural areas and we leave the poor people to their fate to negotiate on technical issues and documents such as the Environmental Impact Assessment, then the outcome normally indicates a kind of power imbalance,” he said