TAKE OVER OF KETA LAGOON FOR $30,000

7000 acres of Keta Lagoon given to Kensington Industries limited

By Duke Nii Amartey Tagoe

It has happened again! The pillage goes on and on. The Keta Lagoon in the Volta Region has been handed over to a salt mining company for $30,000 (Thirty Thousand Dollars).

The deal between the Ghana Minerals Commission and Kensington Industries Limited of India, will enable the company grab 7000 acres of the entire lagoon whilst 300metres at the periphery representing 3 percent (3%) of the lagoon will be left for the local salt miners.

What is worse, the company has departed from the agreement it signed with the Minerals Commission to use sea brine for salt production and has resorted to the use of surface water and underground pool by means of pipes and very huge pumping machines.

It has also emerged that long before Kensington Industries Limited was granted a licence to mine salt in the Adina-Denu area, it had already encroached on lands belonging to the neighboring communities in flagrant violation of the Mineral and Minning Act.

Babulal Goud, New MD, Kensington Industries Limited

In a letter dated 18^th November 2009 addressed to the elders of the Dogbekope Community , Rajesh Mehte, a director of the company, “acknowledged having encroached on their lands unlawfully without having been granted a licence. We  apologise and withdraw immediately.”

Janet Aglodo, a salt miner said “the fresh water, that used to flow from Togo into the lagoon, bringing in fish in the rainy season has been blocked by roads and dams constructed by the company. As a result the annual fishing and salt winning seasons that used to bring relief to the people have become a thing of the past since the lagoon dries up prematurely.”

An immovable fishing input on which fish traps were laid in the lagoon and which served as roosts and breeding grounds for water birds has been destroyed.

“It is highly unthinkable and we would have thought that by now the government, which we massively support and rally behind, would have made a statement. How can this government apportion the Keta Lagoon to foreigners to the neglect of his own subjects and indigenes who derive their entire livelihood and very existence from the lagoon” said Cynthia Gali of the of the Ketu-Keta Salt Winners Association.

Mr Pascal Lamptey, MCE, Ketu-South

Pascal Lamptey, Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of the Ketu South Municipal Assembly has confirmed that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) failed to undertake a proper environmental impact assessment before the license was granted to the company. 

He revealed that Kensington Industries Limited reneged on its promises to provide some infrastructure for the area as part of its corporate social responsibility and that has led to mistrust between the two parties.

Mr Lamptey said as a representative of the President of Ghana in the area, his most crucial obligation is to ensure that investment was brought to the area and jobs are created for the teeming youths. 

According to him the government seeks to relegate under-development to the past by encouraging foreign investment in places that production was low for rapid growth. He said he has set up a sensitization committee to help the community and the company co-habitate with each other, leading to what be believes would bring about “peaceful development.”

That assertion by the Municipal Chief Executive has however  been challenged by the National Coalition on Mining of the Third World Network (TWN). The coalition has expressed shock at the displacement and the destruction of the livelihood of more than three thousand eight hundred and ninety eight people (3898) in one single swoop.

The TWN contends that the major task and expectation of the Kensington Industries Limited is to make super profits for its shareholders back home by the use of cheap labour and wondered how the local people will benefit from this deal.

In a letter dated 25^th January 2010 and addressed the Managing Director of the Kensington Industries Limited, Kofi Tetteh, Principal Sectoral Planning and Policy Officer of the Ghana Minerals Commission stated that the Commission has “favourably recommended to the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources to grant you a fifteen year licence to mine salt in the Keta Laggon”

ASP Naa Atolgo Agbogne

ASP Naa Atolgo Agbogne at the Agbozome District Police Command has confirmed the arrest of some sixteen people in the recent clashes between the company and the youths of the area on the 2^nd of December 2015.

According to him, such disturbances by the youths had halted operations of the company and had rendered it incapable of producing for a very long time. He wondered how the company could meet its corporate responsibilities in the area when they were being prevented from doing business.

The sixteen local salt miners are languishing in jail at the Keta Divisional Divisional Command whilst another receiving treatment for bullet wounds at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital has been chained to his bed to avoid escape as he awaits prosecution.

Editorial

Something Is Wrong

The Afienya Youth Leadership Training Centre was perhaps the first of its kind

It was established as a collaboration between the National Youth Council (NYC) and the Frederich Neumann Foundation of the then West Germany.

The centre was to train young people in animal husbandry, crop farming, blacksmithing, building construction and other areas of interest.

After graduation, the products of the centre were to be encouraged to form cooperatives around the country to provide employment for themselves and young people in their communities.

The graduates were also seen as stimuli to accelerated rural development.

So far about nine of such institutions have been established throughout the country over a period of about 42 years.

The sad thing is that these centres are collapsing as a direct result of lack of funding.

However, how can we say that we have a serious commitment to fighting youth unemployment when we allow these institutions to collapse?

Who will save the Youth Leadership Training Centres?

Something is definitely wrong!

SONGOR LAGOON UNDER THREAT !!!

Atsiakpor, a major threat to the Songor Lagoon

By Duke Tagoe

A few powerful men are wrecking untold havoc on the Ada Songor Lagoon with associated devastating environmental consequences.

The Lagoon produces a greater part of salt consumed in Ghana and in many Western African states including Togo.

Fishing activities have also been badly affected as water levels in the lagoon have dropped greatly driving communities along the lagoon into a state of desperation.

Private businessmen in connivance with local chiefs have demarcated portions of the lagoon and have grabbed huge swaths of lands around the lagoon.

As if that were not enough, with the aid of electric powered pumping machines, water is pumped out of the lagoon into dug out dams or dykes locally called “Atsiakpo” for the production of salt.

A cross section of salt winers and the media at the Songor Lagoon

These dykes are owned by a few people and have driven many salt winners out of business. The poverty stricken salt winners then work on these dykes and win salt for the owners of the dykes at fifty Ghana Pesewas (50p) per bowl.

Rev. Sophia Kitcher, Secretary of Okor Songhor Women’s Association has taken a swipe at the complicity of the local chiefs and clan heads in what she considers a crime and describes as “repugnant”.

“Our livelihoods have been destroyed forever and poverty has come to visit us again. Why must a handful of people forcefully take what must belong to everybody, ” she questioned with tears running down her face.

The phenomenon of “Atsiakpo” has also contributed in many ways to the destruction of the landscape and other living organisms in the soil.

The locals believe much of the problem will be resolved when the sandbar between the sea and the lagoon is removed. However the sums involved in the removal of the Sand Bar are huge and runs in the millions of Ghana cedis.

A pile of salt close to an "Atsiakpor

In 2011, a combined team of representatives from the Minerals Commission, Attorney General’s Department, the office of the Chief Justice and the Private Enterprises Foundation attempted to relocate communities and indigenous people along the Songor Lagoon for takeover by strategic investors but the move was met with stiff resistance.

“When they came, they asked us to move away from the lagoon and promised to give us alternative livelihood in farming and animal rearing and those who were interested in fish farming would be moved to settle along the Volta River” said Albert Apetorgbor of the Ada Songor Cooperative.

The cooperative is leading in the transformation of salt winning communities and is challenging the exclusive monopoly rights over the lagoon.

Dr Yao Graham, Chief Executive Officer of the Third World Network and a leading advocate of the National Coalition on Mining (NCOM) is beside himself with grief. According to him the problem around the Songoor Lagoon has to do with the push for large scale foreign investment as a strategy for the mining sector.

He said that in places where small scale activities like salt wining can thrive, government still find a way of bringing in foreigners to take over these activities.

Dr Graham said the evidence does not support the claim that large scale foreign investment will create jobs and develop the areas where the investments are made.

 

A monument erected for Margaret Kowornu

On 17^th May 1985 armed policemen acting in concert with a private company raided Bonikope, a community along the Songor Lagoon killing Margaret Kowornu, a pregnant woman in the process.

Vacuum Salt Products Limited had alleged at the time that the inhabitants of the area had encroached on their portion of the lagoon allocated to them by the government.

A monument has been erected in memory of Margaret. The locals explain that that monument serves as an embodiment of their collective aspirations and imbibes in them a zeal to fight in defense of their heritage and the Songor lagoon.

Dr David Pessey a member of the Socialist Forum of Ghana has also described the state of the Songor Lagoon as a calamity of monstrous proportion and has called for a concerted effort to halt the “grab of the lagoon as a collective resource. He said “the quest for the maximization of profit has inebriated certain individuals who wield immense power and believe they can hold sway over the indigenous people.”

Dr Pessey expressed fear that an Environmental Impact Assessment will reveal that developments taking place around the lagoon are having a severe ecological impact on the immediate surroundings.

In the Ketu-Keta Lagoon area, Kensingtoon Industries Limited, a salt winning company entered the Dogbekofe area even before permission was granted. 

The communities living along the Ketu-Keta lagoon were not consulted by the investors before the acquisition of the lagoon.

Editorial

LISTEN TO OSAGYEFO

It is always most useful to listen to the words of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Founder of the Republic of Ghana. At the very least they describe our condition and prescribed solutions to our problems.

In the introduction to his book “Neo Colonialism; The Last Stage of Imperialism” he writes, “The essence of neo-colonialism is that the state which is subject to it, is in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty.“In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside”.

In the same book he also wrote “A state in the grip of neo-colonialism is not master of its own destiny. It is this factor which makes neo-colonialism such a serious threat to world peace.”

 Need we write more?