Accra, May 14, GNA - Anglogold Ashanti Mining Company on Wednesday presented a cheque for 589, 767 Ghana cedis to the Ministry of Lands, Mines and Forestry as its final dividend for the year 2007. This brings to a total of 1.6 million US dollars dividend the company has paid to the government for the year 2007. Mr. Christian Rampa-Luhembwe, Vice President of Anglogold Ashanti said following the merger of Anglogold and Ashanti Goldfields four years ago the current payment was the company's eighth presentation of dividend to the government. "This means that the total value of dividend paid to the government since 2004 is 15.5 million US dollars and royalties of 38.5 million US dollars", he said.

He said this year, the company earmarked 44.4 million US dollars for its 'Turn Around Strategy' at both Tarkwa and Obuasi mines where they were operating at. He said the 'Turn Around Strategy' sought the sustenance, expansion and the modernization efforts as well as putting the mines on solid stead to produce more quality ounces of gold at low cost. Mr. Rampa-Luhembwe noted that there was 74 per cent reduction in malaria cases in the Obuasi Municipality since the company launched its three million US dollars malaria elimination programme three years ago and the exercise would be replicated at Tarkwa this year. The Vice President said the company also contributed 100,000 US dollars towards the construction of the proposed Neuro-Sceince Hospital at Korle bu Teaching Hospital. He appealed to the government to join hands with the company to help it flush illegal miners out of its operational areas. Mrs Esther Obeng-Dapaah, the sector Minister thanked AngloGold Ashanti, for the dividend and gave the assurance that all mining companies would be provided the conducive environment to operate. She expressed concerns about the increase in fatalities involving non-"illegal miners" in the underground mines and said the situation was disturbing.

"The underground mine is a restricted area and must be kept as such to avoid such occurrences", she added. She noted that even though government had put in place appropriate regulatory framework to ensure that the impact of mining on the environment was kept to the barest minimum and the directives were generally complied with, there had been allegations of pollution of some rivers and streams within concessions of some mining companies. The Minister called on mining companies to comply fully with environmental regulations to satisfy the principle of sustainability in mining.