By Newman C. A Dotse=
// Information available to The Citizen Newspaper from a Chinese national on the condition of anonymity, reveals that the Chinese nationals in mining business have rather a very horrendous ambition inimical to the progress of Ghana, our mother land.Chinese
According to him, when we talk about the biggest gold reserve in the world, China is number one but the Chinese government decided to protect the gold reserve, and rather decided to explore the avenue of mining gold in other countries to cushion the economy of China.
According to the information, the mission of Chinese who are into gold mining business in Ghana is not necessarily into the mining business to make much profit. Their quest is simple!
The Chinese government makes funds available to the Chinese nationals who are willing to embark on mining gold in Africa, especially West Africa.
In Ghana, the plan was to see Chinese into mining move to the cocoa growing areas, buy the cocoa farms get rid of the cocoa and commence surface mining in a bid to have our cocoa farms and fertile lands destroyed to pave way for their cocoa industry to take over from both Ivory Coast and Ghana as the leading cocoa producers in the world, as similar plans are being formulated in Ivory Coast, even though Ivoirians resisted the move.
They entice cocoa farmers with so much money that they cannot resist; hence the farmers, considering the level of the present economic condition, voluntarily give out their cocoa farms to them for gold prospecting.
Soon, Ghana’s bragging right of being the second largest cocoa producing Country in the world after Ivory Coast, will be a thing of the past.
No wonder people living within and around cocoa growing communities are constantly calling on the government to put in place pragmatic measures to prevent the destruction of cocoa farms from mining activities in the country.
According to them, cocoa farming was their biggest activity but with the current illegal mining gaining grounds without putting into consideration the aftermath, they veered into that area to outwit the system.
Information available to this paper has it that, some Chinese are even rejecting concession without cocoa farms; and paying heavily for cocoa farms just to accomplish their mission.
By the kind of ultra-modern technology being used by China in order to speed up cocoa production in China, Ghanaians may soon be laughing at the wrong side of their mouth in case the agenda materializes.
Chinese gold miners are causing widespread environmental destruction in Ghana due to heavy mechanization, something many locals could hardly afford.
The presence of these Chinese miners in some of the local communities is also intensifying social conflicts due to increasing rivalry over scarce rural land and the lack of financial muscle to compete fairly with the Chinese nationals.
Illegal mining had cleared large tracts of arable Cocoa farmlands in the forest at the various cocoa growing communities; meaning with time, the farmers may not even get any land to grow crops for domestic consumption; and this, if not taken care of, may generate starvation
