Mining firms improve operations in Ghana – EPA
Mining companies operating in Ghana have generally improved upon their operations as to their adherence to the mining laws as well as in their obligations towards society in the form of corporate social responsibilities.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) 2012 Environmental Performance Rating and Disclosure “Akoben” of Mining Companies report disclosed on Friday in Accra.
Under the Akoben initiative, the environmental performance of mining and manufacturing operations is assessed under a five-colour rating scheme.
The colours are Gold, which stands for excellent performance, Green for very good performance; Blue for good; Orange for satisfactory; and Red for poor performance.
Mr Daniel Amlalo, Executive Director of EPA explained that the ratings which started in 2010 were annually disclosed to the public and the media with the aim of strengthening public awareness and participation on issues concerning mining.
He said 16 companies were involved in the rating programme for year 2012 and all but two of them performed excellently under their corporate social responsibilities while a good number of them performed very well toward their responsiveness to public complaints.
More of the companies also performed satisfactory in handling environmental best practices but seven out of them had issues with legalities and regulations thus rating them red or poor performers in the final rating.
Mr Amlalo noted that while those, who performed well would be rewarded, others who performed poorly would be sanctioned and fined. “It is not a heavy fine though”, he added.
He said for now the ratings involved bigger mining companies like Abosso Goldfileds Limited-Damang, Adamus Resources Limited-Teleku Bokazo, Anglogold Ashanti Limited-Iduapriem, Chirano Gold Mines Limited-Chirano, Ghana Bauxite Company Limited-Awaso and Ghana Manganese Limited-Nsuta.
The rest were Newmont Ghana Gold Limited-Kenyasi, Golden Star (Wassa) Limited-Akyempim.
Mr Amlalo, however, explained that EPA was in collaboration with the Minerals Commission to design a programme to cater for small scale miners.
He urged mining companies to endeavour to attain zero tolerance for toxic waste releases into the environment by putting up measures to properly manage their toxics.
Dr Mrs Benice Heloo, Deputy Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation in a speech read for her by Mr Samuel Anku, Deputy Executive Director, EPA, said the ratings symbolized the Ministry’s resolve to tackle the challenges of environmental and natural resources management through transparency, disclosure, public awareness and community participation.
She said the Akoben programme also showed that a rating system could be applied in Ghana to evaluate environmental performance of companies just like the Moody’s rating in financial markets.
She announced that the Akoben environmental trophy, which would be awarded to companies on the World Environmental Day would be instituted to reward the 2013 Green and Gold companies during 2014 Environment Day celebration.
Dr Heloo said EPA had already started some discussions on how to apply the rating system to the built-environment clean cities programme, climate management and forestry.
“In the coming years, we will see the Akoben programme establish deep institutional roots at the national, regional and local levels”.
Mr Ransford Sekyi, Head of Mining Department of EPA, explained that the Akoben system was a regulatory management tool that would help bring sanity in the mining operations. It also involved hard data, analytical results and visual evidence of activities and performances of companies which were also devoid of biases.
Most of the participating companies expressed satisfaction with the ratings.
Source: GNA