MINING COMPANY ESTABLISHES AGRIBUSINESS PROJECT (PAGE 21, NOV 10)

GOLD Fields Ghana (Tarkwa Mine) Limited has established an agribusiness project at Abekoase in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality in the Western Region to help create employment for the community members and also serve as a legacy for the area after the closure of the mine.
The Abekoase Agribusiness Project, which is on a pilot basis, will be replicated in other mining communities in the catchment areas of the company.
It consists of 20-acre oil palm plantation inter-cropped with maize, plantain and pineapples.
The project has a one acre vegetable farm, six big fish ponds each stocked with 5,000 fingerings of tilapia and one pond stocked with 5,000 mudfish.
The mining company will also construct additional four fish ponds to bring the number to 10, and expand the 20-acre oil palm plantation to 100, establish a piggery and start the rearing of sheep.
The company has constructed a project office and a storeroom at the project site and has employed 35 permanent staff, most of whom are from Abekoase and Samahu, both mining communities within the catchment area of the company.
Speaking at the inauguration of the project, the General Manager of the company, Mr Peet van Schalkwyk, said the company sought to play a role in the sustainable development of its host communities and remained conscious that mining operations would eventually come to an end.
“Our new community development strategy is therefore to set up sustainable, profit making businesses in our catchment area,” he explained.
Mr Schalkwyk said the pilot project which had been undertaken at Abekoase, had yielded positive results, adding that it would be replicated in other communities.
“For us, we are not interested in the millions of Ghana cedis that we spend in the communities, but rather the impact that this has on the community members,” Mr Schalkwyk emphasised.
He said the company, occasionally undertook studies to assess the impact of the projects on the beneficiaries.