Accra, July 30, GNA - Mr Tom Mair, President and Chief Executive Officer of Golden Star Resources (GSR) a mining company, on Wednesday said the key to long term development in any mining community is a realistic and convincing system that contributes positively to the community.

Speaking at the induction of selected smallholder farmers into the Golden Star Oil Palm Plantation (GSOPP), Mr Mair said GSR believes that supporting sustainable projects in the catchments communities would provide an effective and imaginative response to unemployment. Under the programme 69 individuals will manage four-hectare farms each but they will continue to receive technical and financial support from GSOPP.

"Those involved in the process would be assisted through an extension service system to improve on their past agricultural practices and it is in this sense that the smallholders' scheme we are introducing today is a most relevant factor," Mr Mair said. The Golden Star Oil Palm Plantation is the company's major project in the areas of Alternative Livelihood and sustainable development and by the end of this year the company will have developed almost 1,000 hectares and planted 100,000 palms.

"Our goal is to achieve a cropping rate of 1,000 hectares per annum. We are looking for a development partner to complement our financial contribution to the project and to fully transform GSOPP into a self sustaining entity that will continue long after mining has come to an end in this area," Mr Mair said.

The beneficiaries will start repayment of the monies two years after the first harvest. These repayments would be spent developing further plantations until the company's goal of developing plantations to support up to 3,000 smallholders was attained. The company, Mr Mair said, had realized that its previous efforts to assist the communities through other alternative livelihood projects had not been effective.

"We noted in the process that unemployment and poverty were the key factors that attracted and still attract many of the community members into the 'galamsey ' lifestyle. We therefore concluded that by providing safer and more permanent jobs, we could gradually wean the youth in our areas of operation from the unpleasant and deleterious effects of galamsey," he said.

"I am happy to announce that in GSOPP we send a viable message to the youth of Ghana that there are realistic and much safer means whereby they can be assured of an immediate income." Mr Mair appealed to the farmers to discharge their obligations under the GSOPP arrangement to ensure the sustainability and survival of the project.

Mrs Esther Obeng Dapaah, Minister of Mines, Lands and Forestry, said among other initiatives, government policy directs mining companies to put in place viable alternative livelihood programs in the respective mining communities.

"All in all I find the comprehensive nature of the GSOPP initiative an arrangement which ensures a truly enduring and relevant community based project which is worthy of emulation by other mining companies," she said.

Golden Star made its first investment in Ghana in 1999 and the company and it employs over 3,500 people. 30 July 08