Awaso still underdeveloped
The old bauxite town of Awaso looks drab, underdeveloped and decrepit. It is still a village, with mostly small mud houses after 66 years of bauxite production.
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The decaying buildings with old zinc roofing sheets, no paved roads, no proper drainage and lack of good schools attest to the neglect that this old small bauxite town has suffered from the exploiters of this resource.
This town in the Sefwi Bibiani Anhwiaso District of the Western Region is not going anywhere in a hurry.
Thirty years ago, I encountered Awaso as a young reporter, newly employed and posted to the then difficult Sefwi Wiawso District with its then very terrible road system.
Awaso looked the same as today, but it was more vibrant. The trains were in operation, ferrying the bauxite from the Kanayeribo Mountain in Awaso, where millions of tonnes of bauxite deposit held great promise for the town.
In those days the Awaso railway station also served as a depot for the millions of cocoa beans from the Sefwi District, which incidentally is still the leading producer of the crop in the country. From there, the cocoa was transported by rail to the Takoradi Harbour for export to fuel the country’s economy.
It was also a timber depot and many companies, including Gliksten, used the area to ferry their products by rail to the Takoradi Port. Hundreds of railway, timber and cocoa workers lived in the town.
In those days, bauxite, timber and cocoa were ferried to the Takoradi Harbour through the Awaso-Takoradi rail line, which took off from Awaso to the coast, meandering its way through Diaso, Prestea, Huni Valley and then to Tarkwa and then to the Takoradi Harbour, 240 kilometres away.
Today things are different. The Western rail line which was constructed to enhance the smooth operations and transport of goods and passengers has collapsed and bauxite and the other items have to be ferried to the ports by big heavy-duty trucks which convey their heavy red cargo, used for the production of alumina from Awaso, to the dangerous Tarkwa-Bogoso road. It is unthinkable that the Tarkwa-Bogoso road is in such a deplorable state in spite of the area’s mineral wealth.
It is surprising to see these big trucks with their 48 tyres as they tear down the road, at great cost; considering the wear and tear to the road. There is this suspicion that most of these vehicles are owned by the very people who plotted the collapse of the Western rail line.
Since 2007, much of the bauxite has gone to the ports through the road, thus worsening the poor condition of the roads in that area.
First discovered in 1914 in Ghana by Sir Albert Kitson, bauxite is an ore and the main source of aluminium. Though the British Aluminium Company gave approval for the mining of Bauxite in 1928 at Awaso, the exploration and mining works started only in the 1940s. Apart from the millions of tonnes of bauxite deposit at Awaso, there are substantial deposits of bauxite at Nyinahin and Kibi, which remain unexploited.
The use of heavy-duty trucks in the haulage of bauxite from Awaso to the Takoradi Port has attracted strong opposition from many.
A member of the Western Regional House of Chiefs, Odeneho Ogyeahowo Yaw Gyebi II, had cause to comment on this.
He said: "The haulage of the minerals by road was causing great damage to roads in the north western corridor of the region."
Odeneho Gyebi, who is the Omanhene of Sefwi Asawinso Traditional Area, said: “These roads were constructed with huge foreign capital and if they deteriorate completely, when will the government find money to put them back? If we don’t complain, the government will not take us serious," he said.
The bauxite, owned by the Ghana Bauxite Company, has seen a change in ownership over the years until the Bosai Mineral Group Co. Ltd, a Chinese company, took over in February, 2010 after it had bought Rio Tinto’s 80 per cent majority stake in the mine.
Now the old Awaso railway station, like the town itself, looks decrepit. Weeds have taken over the tracks. The big cocoa and timber sheds have all been abandoned.
A lonely forlorn and dirty railway carriage stands at the station, reminding visitors of a bygone era, when this place was a beehive of activity, with hundreds of workers in the cocoa, timber and bauxite industry contributing their quota to national development. What irks the visitor is that part of the station is being used to repair the big vehicles that have replaced the railway system.
Awaso’s underdevelopment, after 66 years of bauxite production, and the collapse of the Western rail line speak volumes.
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