Golden Star Resources relocates Togbekrom community
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The farming communities, made up of 28 villages and hamlets, had their mud-houses replaced with 215 residential facilities.
According to the residents, the new resettlement was an improvement over what they had.
The new settlement has a market, canteen, lorry station, early childhood education centre, commercial area and waste dump.
It also has electricity and a mechanised small water system, which serve the new community. Other social infrastructure, including a police post is under construction.
That aside, more than 383 farmers within the demarcated areas, who were assessed and valued, have been compensated with cash.
The youth from the community have also been enrolled in skill development training programmes in masonry, commercial cookery and other forms of skills.
When the Daily Graphic visited the old settlement, it found out that the communities were cut off from the main town of Akyempem and they had no access to motorable road, toilet, among others .They were just a few metres walk from the tailing or mine dump site of the Golden Star Wassa Mines.
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, the Managing Director of Golden Star, Mr Neale Laffin, said the relocation of Togbekrom and the other communities and subsequent establishment of a modern society was indicative of how far the company wished to go to ensure social and industrial harmony.
He commended the community for its co-operation to enhance the ongoing sustainability of the mining industry.
“The project was completed using a model of excellent communication with all of its stakeholders and is a testament to what we can achieve when we work as team with common goal.”
The Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Yaw Effa-Baafi, commended Golden Star for meeting all the conditions set under the law with regard to the settlement.
He said the Minerals and Mining Compensation and Resettlement) Regulations, 2012 LI 2175, amply imposed the steps that mineral right holders must take in order to comply with the regulation for settlement.
The chief of the community, Togbe Martin Duagbor, commended the community and the company for accepting to work together during the consultative stages to the completion of the new settlement.
By Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu/Daily Graphic/Ghana