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ghana, gold and trade liberalization

george awudi bright and helen la trobe, friends of the earth ghana

Ghana 's 1983 World Bank-IMF Structural Adjustment Program led to the privatization and massive expansion of Ghana 's mining sector, particularly in gold for export. The government gave incentives to encourage mining investment: liberalizing imports, removing currency controls and reducing state regulation. This generated a more favorable investment climate for mining companies, and as a result 70-85% of large-scale mining is now foreign-owned. Mining companies are allowed to repatriate up to 80% of their profits, and all obstacles to total foreign ownership have been removed. As a result, it is estimated that only 10% of the value of Ghana 's gold (some US$70 million) actually accrues to the national economy, while the gross cost of environmental degradation as a result of accelerated activity in Ghana 's extractive industries is estimated to be 5% of the country's GDP (about US$2.23 billion).

tarnishing the environment

The environmental and social impacts of gold mining in Ghana have been catastrophic. Land degradation, habitat destruction and air and water pollution by heavy metals, arsenic, sulphur, gases and dust have been widespread. Land has become so severely contaminated that it is no longer able to support vegetation or crops. Farmlands have been encroached upon by mining activities, severely undermining food security in mining communities where hunger persists. Releases of poisonous gases from two major gold mines are so high that local people suffer from illness similar to arsenic poisoning. Cyanide, heavy metals and chemicals used in gold mining and processing are discharged untreated into watercourses, polluting drinking water and poisoning fish, an important food source. Mining also causes severe deforestation: 60% of Ghana's rainforests in the Wassa West District have already been destroyed by mining operations, for example. harming people Social impacts have been equally dire. Local communities have suffered eviction and forced relocation. It is thought that around 50,000 indigenous people have been displaced by mining operations without adequate compensation.

Women have been raped, activists illegally detained, local cultures denied, villages burned and local people intimidated. Social breakdown such as drug abuse, crime and prostitution is widespread in mining communities. Loss of farmlands and the use of access roads has caused growing tension and conflict between local people and the mining company's security personnel, as well as with police and the military, escalating into beatings and even the death of villagers. Gold mining activities in one area, where twothirds of the local land has been sold off to multinationals, have caused the spread of malaria, tuberculosis, silicosis, acute conjunctivitis and skin diseases with very little compensation for local communities

The government has now taken the decision to allow mining within Ghana's forest reserves. Prospecting has been completed, mining camps and infrastructure are already in place in most reserves, and mining companies are now going through the permitting process. Mining in forest reserves goes against the wishes of the majority of Ghana's people, and will only deepen the environmental and social crises already underway within and around Ghana's forests.