The Ashanti Regional New Patriotic Party (NPP) Communication Team led by Paul Kwabena Yandoh on Friday, February 3, 2024, paid a working visit to AngloGold Ashanti mines.

The purpose of the visit was to confirm the true state of the mines in response to former President John Dramani Mahama’s meeting with the Adansi traditional council during his stakeholders’ engagement tour to the Ashanti region.

The NPP’s communication team claimed that former President Mahama said “The AngloGold Ashanti mine has collapsed and he will revive it when he is elected into office after December 7th 2024 general elections".

But the visit to the mining company proved otherwise of the said allegation as staff were busy working on various posts across the mines.

During a brief meeting between the NPP communicators and some administrative staff of the mines, the staff refused to respond to anything political about their visit to the mining firm.

They confirmed the mine operation went down from 2014 to 2016 as a result of the Obuasi Deep Decline project associated with other underground maintenance which was not contrary to what Minister Mahama said on the documentation process of the mines before being launched in 2019 by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

What John Dramani Mahama said in Adansi Fomena Palace?

Addressing the Adansi traditional leaders, the former President denied President Nana Akufo Addo’s accusations of hindering AngloGold Ashanti’s operations during his administration.

Highlighting his support for initiatives like the Obuasi Deep Decline initiated to enhance operations at the gold mine, the former President disclosed “In 2014 while I was in office, management of AngloGold Ashanti reached out to me about huge decline production records of gold from the mines. Management of the mines presented an amended programme in mining operation in Obuasi to me for consideration since they have exceeded their underground mining limit permitted by law as a result of the decline’’ he said.

The former president further explained: "They said they will need new mining equipment, new agreement with the government to enable them go further deep underground with new investors and a new company specialized in deep underground mining to revive the mine’s decline in gold production. I didn’t hesitate, I immediately directed the minister responsible for Lands and Natural Resources to start the process. So at the time of leaving office in 2016, we had completed Sixty per cent (60%) of the process. In the process, some staff whose skills were not required contracts were terminated while they were also doing underground maintenance’’ disclosed.

Mr. Mahama assured the traditional leaders that if elected he would ensure all the documental agreements will be fully implemented to create more jobs for Adansi communities.

“As part of the agreement they were supposed to build the Science and Technology University in Obuasi which they have. They were supposed to establish an industrial hub; they were also supposed to release some of their lands to encourage small-scale mining which has fully not been implemented. When we are elected into office in elections 2024 will revisit all these issues. The new government continue from where we left and commission it later in 2019. So we started the (DDP) Obusi Deep Decline commissioned by President Nana Akufo Addo so it’s not true that AngloGold Ashanti collapsed under our administration.”

Briefing the media after the meeting with AngloGold Ashanti at the Obuasi government Trauma hospital construction site, Paul Kwabena Yandoh accused former President John Dramani Mahama for misrepresenting the true state of the mines.

“We came for a fact-finding mission and the former President has been exposed because the mines is in full operation all because of President Nana Akufo Addo’s commitment to the survival of the AngloGold Ashanti mines and the entire Adansi Community whose survival depends on the mines’’.

Paul Kwabena Yandoh told the media the fact-finding mission to Obuasi AngloGold mines has exposed the lies of the former President to Ghanaians during his tour in the Adansi communities.

“Our tour shows clearly that the mines are working so there’s nothing wrong for him to come and revive so far as the AngloGold Ashanti mines operations are concerned".

The team continued the tour to the government 100-bed trauma health facility under construction at Obuasi as part of the government project to decongest the Komfo Anokye Hospital which is full of referred minor and major health complications.

Yandoh who was pleased with the work done so far commended the contractor for the work done on the project and urged him to speed up work on site.