Gold mining company, AngloGold Ashanti, has reopened its Obuasi mines with steps to restrict certain jobs at the mines for the locals.
The mines has been officially reopened on January 22, 2019, after its closure in 2014 due to some challenges with the concession and lack of capital to inject into the mines.
According to AngloGold Ashanti, the closure of the Obuasi mines offered the company the opportunity to focus on care and maintenance of the mining concession over the past four years.
The reopening is estimated to give jobs to about 550 individuals in the country.
Senior Sustainability Manager at AngloGold Ashanti, Nana Ampofo said the firm has moved the manual oriented operations to a more mechanised operation.
“We are getting into what we called mechanised mining and it is going to be a contract mining, the contractor that is going to do the mining and the owner will be doing the supervision as we’ve communicated in all engagement with stakeholders, what we used to have was a mine that had a lot of employees we’ve changed from that stage into a new stage where we will have mechanised mining with very few and highly skilled employees.â€
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The last operations of the AngloGold Ashanti’s Obuasi mines saw an intrusion by the locals leading to an infraction with them.
Speaking to efforts by the gold mining company to curb the situation, Mr Ampofo said the firm has restricted certain jobs for the locals.
“The development of the local employment procedure, we are going to ensure that all unskilled and semi-skilled labour is going to be restricted to the concession and we are going to make efforts to make sure that we are able to get a lot more locals into areas of work..â€
The mines is expected to produce its first gold from its 375m dollars five-year underground project by the end of 2019.
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