He said FGR considered the media as an important stakeholder and that frequent interactions with them would help their host communities appreciate better what the company stood for.

Addressing some selected journalists in the Western Region, at a media engagement which was held at Bogoso, Mr Allen noted that there were many positive success stories to be told about the Mine, but it was only the media that could project that.

The programme was on the theme: “Re-energizing local media relations to meet current community relations challenges.”

The Acting General Manager explained that “the essence of the media engagement is to re-energize the relation that we have with our local media practitioners so that together we can all address challenges that some of our host communities report to them through education.

“We believe that if the media is well informed about the challenges in our operations, they will be in a better position to educate our host communities. We intend to have this media engagement continuously.”

Touching on some projects of the Mine, Mr Robert Gyamfi, Sustainability and Stakeholder Relations Manager, said since 2017, tailings storage facility and other former Mine areas were being progressively turned into oil palm plantation.

He observed that “over 190 hectares planted at FGR Bogoso Prestea Mine represented about 20 per cent of the total plantation area.”

In terms of the Mines Cooperate Social Investment project, he said the company was currently undertaking several projects in which some have been completed while others were yet to be completed.

The projects include, construction of junior and senior high school blocks, teachers’ quarters, Outpatient Department, community centres, water closet toilet facilities, renovation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) laboratory, registration and renewal of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards for some host communities among others.

Aside from these projects, Mr Gyamfi said they had also partnered with the Mbease Nsuta community to construct an ultra-modern mortuary for them.

He described the increasing activities of illegal miners on the company’s concession, encroachment and destruction of their oil palm plantation as a major worry, but “we are constructively engaging the communities through evidence base dialogue to get the issues properly addressed.”