Prestea Sankofa Gold cries to government for support
More than 200 workers of the Prestea Sankofa Gold Limited in the Western Region who have not received their salaries for the past nine months have appealed to the government to inject capital to revamp their operations.
They said the mining firm was a subsidiary of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) with government owning 90 per cent shares in its operations.
However, as a result of the fallen prices of gold on the world market, the firm had suffered a slump in its operations, which have had negative financial implications on the workforce.
Speaking at a staff durbar in Prestea during the visit by the two Deputy Ministers of Lands and Natural Resources, Mrs Barbara Oteng-Gyasi and Mr Benito Owusu-Bio on Monday, Mr Samuel John Jebuni, the Human Resource Superintendent of the Company, said it had informed GNPC, and for that matter, government about its plights, but nothing concrete had been done to remedy the situation.
Currently, he said, the Government had not constituted a management team and board of directors to run the company.
He, therefore, appealed to the government to fast-track efforts to appointment these management bodies and make sure the company received financial injection to boost its operations.
In response, Mrs Oteng- Gyasi, a Deputy Minister of the Lands and Natural Resources and Member of Parliament for the area, assured the workers that government would soon put measures in place to address their concerns.
She said Government was not sleeping over their plights and they would soon witness concrete action being taken to resolve their concerns.
Nana Ntaboa Pra IV, the Chief of Prestea- Hemang, added his voice to the call by the workers by asking government to speed up the process of injecting financial resources into the mining firm since it was once a profitable one.
He said when the firm runs effectively; it boosts the social life of the people in the area in terms of trading and other economic activities.
Source:GNA