Obuasi, Aug 26, GNA - A pressure group at Obuasi has accused AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) of adopting new tactics that would render the Mining and Building Contractors (MBC), a subsidiary company, ineffective in their underground activities to warrant their intended abrogation of the contractual agreement existing between them.

AGA and MBC have been in contractual deal since 1921, which expired last August and AGA wanted to stop its promise of extending the contract to the next five years because of an alleged coming in of a new foreign company, Byrncat to replace MBC.

Abrogation of the contractual agreement would mean that over 1,000 workers of MBC would lose their jobs to add to unemployment situation in the municipality.

According to a petition by the pressure group, Alliance For The Survival of Obuasi (AFSO) to the Minister of Mines and the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, AGA was deliberately sabotaging the activities of MBC workers underground to make them non-performers to justify their reasons of ending the contract.

The petition, signed by Edward Akwasi Akuoku, the Spokesperson of the group, alleged that AGA had cut off an underground compressor air to areas where the MBC workers were operating, as well as the cutting of the underground drilling water.

"There are intermittent cuts of underground power to the MBC working areas, all intended to give the 'dog' a bad name," it said. The petition further alleged that AGA had failed to honour its financial obligation to MBC in recent times to cripple the company's finances so that it could not pay its workers.

The petition which was copied to a number of people including the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines, stressed: "AGA has failed to honour its financial obligation to MBC in recent times thereby making MBC unable to honour its obligation to the workers and suppliers by way of advanced salary payments and supplied items payments.

"These, among others, are the critical concerns of the Alliance for which we are craving your indulgence to intervene and subsequently address to bring sanity in the municipality," it added. In a related development, a worker of the MBC who wanted to stay anonymous told the Ghana News Agency that for two to three weeks now the compressor air to their underground working had been reduced, thereby affecting their operational targets.

Meanwhile, sources close to the AGA are denying the allegations.