He said Ghana’s inability to ratify the convention is creating room for mining companies to get away with some safety breaches.
“There is a global regime, the ILO convention 176 on health and safety in mines which the Ghana government has not ratified, if we ratify the ILO convention 176 it will lay the legal basis for us to beef up the demands we can make of the mines and also the institutional regime that we set up to enforce health and safety in mines,” Dr Graham told JoyBusiness in an interview.
The call comes on the back of the recent collapse of the reclaim tunnel roof at Newmont’s Ahafo Mill Expansion project in the Brong Ahafo region over the weekend.
Six contract workers were reported dead and two others treated at the clinic and discharged.
According to Newmont, the workers were all contractor employees with Consar Limited, a construction services company.
"Newmont Ghana is deeply saddened to report a fatal accident on April 7, following the Relevant authorities have been notified and the company is cooperating with the police on their investigation," it said in a statement Sunday.
“The entire Newmont family is devastated by this tragic accident and our priority is to provide support to the families, friends and co-workers of the deceased,” said Alwyn Pretorius, Regional Senior Vice President of Newmont’s Africa Operations.
Shut down
Newmont Ghana shut down all its mining operations in Ghana temporarily, after the tragic accident.
According to the mining firm, it would only resume operations after investigations are concluded.
“In terms of restart, we will not restart…until we ensure that all areas have been re-assessed,” Acting General Manager at the Ahafo Mines, Yaw Okyere Ntroso told Joy News.
“…our sister company in Akyem has also stopped operation…in solidarity with us, until we resume when the place is safe,” he added.
The development could have some serious implications on the company going forward in terms of impact on its revenue, looking at the volume of gold ounces produced in a day.
The Mining Inspectorate Division of the Minerals Commission has begun investigations to establish the cause of the accident. Some have attributed this accident to more of lack of proper regulation of the sector by the relevant agencies.
This is coming after a separate incident at mining firm Golden Star Resource earlier this year.
Lands and Natural Resources Minister John Peter Amewuh said, “Ghanaian mining sites we know take mining very very seriously. If you have an opportunity to visit the mine, the kind of safety mechanism they deploy will tell you how serious they are about safety, especially this company [Newmont].”
Mr Amewuh added that the situation was an “unfortunate” one and will be investigated.
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