Boyd, Roosen, Quartermain: It takes grit, invention, luck to make the big time
Mining industry legends discuss the backstories on their multibillion-dollar successes.
Over the past year, MINING.com has kept a close eye on illegal Chinese gold mining in Ghana. At its peak, an estimated 50,000 Chinese miners were operating illegally in the country. Ghanaian officials admitted that “the scale [of the illegal mining] is so vast, it is actually difficult to quantify.”
In May the government created a taskforce as part of a crackdown that has found some recent success, but the problems, including damage to local agriculture and water supplies, cultural tensions and, at times, violence, still weigh heavily on Ghanaian society.
In April of this year, the Guardian newspaper sent reporter Afua Hirsch to document the situation. Here’s what she found:
10 Comments
Langa Zeka
China, whenever these guys are in your home town, just be on the lookout. Ask Lesotho, Namibia……
Apple
China is colonizing Africa
darkhorsemining
bullshit, those Chinese people in Ghana are working and creating wealth, didnt suppress any local people there. Chinese people help local boost the ecnomic and their life.
Emmanuel Acquah
Marshall
Ghanaians must blame the government for not taking action much earlier. Anyway it is better late than never. We hope the taskforce will not also compromise.
engels
Ghana government authorities corruption is selling out their country for the profit of the Chinese…
Exploitation rampant, and misery all around, trademarks of colonial capitalism, no matter how communist the Chinese claim to be, this type of actions reveal the true nature of present day China, and it’s ambitions…
Maxi Stewart
Ghana could have gained more than the 3billion loan they got. Their government could have improved their lives better with a full scale plan on how these mining community should have been. typical of Chinese to focus on profits and unmindful of their host country’s needs. Please pass to every human being in these planet…not to allow these chinese migrants to exploit the vulnerabilities of the Ghana government and its people. They want to explore, that is fine with the people of Ghana for as long as these Ghanaeans will benefit. Medical, education, socio cultural benefits, environmental impact, economic and everything….
tong
we tried to get a license to mine in Ghana, but we were blocked unless we started making payments to ‘consultants’ who would make our case for a license. The whole process was corrupt and in the end we gave up, taking our investment of several million to another continent. We could have supplied many jobs in a village that desperately needed it. Ghanians are mostly honest, but they are greedy and lazy, and always complaining that nobody gives them enough. It’s a shame, but i have a hard time blaming the chinese who may be corrupt, but they work hard for their money.
Joseph Tremper
The people in Ghana should benefit with all these because it is from their land. Now, only the Chinese people are the ones benefiting and the Ghana people are the ones that are suffering. http://www.camelminingproducts.biz/
Familycarer.
Come on Ghanaian Government look after your own people, do you want to be a second Zimbabwe.
Rhodesian
Darkhorsemining! I have seen first hand how these people trash hundreds of hectares of farmland, poisoning water supplies with cianide and mercury.
In the process they degrade legally owned gold concessions.
In the ‘mining camps’ disease, prostitution, alcoholism and child labor are all a way of life, not to mention the frequent loss of life.
Finally, the above video only serves to expose the very tip of the iceberg!
Now I’m no tree hugger or NGO, but if this is all ok with you, then you’re one sick puppy!