The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, has delivered a warning to two Chinese mining companies operating in Talensi, a district in Ghana’s Upper East Region, against compromising on safety standards or face severe penalties.
He met with the managements of Earl International Group (Ghana) Gold Limited, previously known as Shaanxi Mining Ghana Limited, and Cardinal Namdini Mining Company Limited during a working tour of their sites on Wednesday, 25 March 2026.
The tour comes twenty days after an Earl employee, mentioned only as Dauda, died on duty and four months after many protesting workers revealed in a letter that they were working under unsafe conditions at the company’s site.
Another employee, Zuuroug Zong, had died on duty at the same site five months before Dauda was found motionless underground on Wednesday, 4 March 2026.
“When I get reports from EPA (Environmental Protection Authority), from MinCom (Minerals Commission) about issues of the environment, safety, health issues, issues that [have] to do with the regulatory environment, things that you yourself have signed on that you agree you’ll work on, that there are clear violations, I get concerned.
“I’m here to work with you, to entreat you to make sure the corrective measures that you have already been told to address, you take it seriously,” the minister told Earl’s management at the meeting.
But he avoided saying more in front of media cameras during his meeting with the company’s management. He said he would speak more frankly with the management on certain issues but would do so off-camera.
“There are some of the things I will keep them down and speak very nicely about it. When the cameras go, I will give you the blows,” he stated.
The officials of the company told the minister that some illegal miners had been encroaching on the company’s concession (a concession the company claimed amid a dispute with several licensed small-scale miners).
But the officials conveniently forgot to tell the minister that their own company, too, was convicted in 2012 by the Minerals Commission of trespassing on a concession owned by the Unique Mining Group, a local small-scale mining firm, and paid $150,000 in 2021 in compensation to the group for the trespass.
At least, two licensed small-scale mining firms, Nanlamtaaba Enterprise and Yenyeya Mining Group, are also currently battling the company at separate law courts in the region, with claims that the Chinese company has intruded into their concessions.
About eight years ago, the same company was dragged to the High Court ‘1’ in Bolgatanga, capital of the Upper East Region, by an Australian firm, Cassius Mining Company, for trespass and theft.
While the case was still pending at the court, Shaanxi officials were caught having secret meetings with the judge sitting on the case, Justice Jacob Bawine Boon, by an investigative operation and exposed.
The investigation resulted in the judge recusing himself from the case. It also led to the resignation of a Minister of State at the Presidency, Rockon Bukari, from government after he, together with officials and allies of the company, attempted to bribe the author of this report to suppress information about the dark secrets between Shaanxi and the judge.
List of tragedies keeps growing despite warnings
Buah is not the first minister in that sector to demand the Chinese company comply with safety standards.
In January, 2020, one of his predecessors, Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, toured the same site and directed the company to ensure all required safety measures were implemented by the end of February, 2020.
After Asomah-Cheremeh’s tour, the company pledged to meet all safety requirements by the close of February that year.
But nothing changed.
Since then, more employees have died on duty and some have suffered permanent disabilities while the company keeps hiring public relations officers to help polish its image.
Locals say the number of people killed so far since the company arrived in the district in 2008 is in excess of eighty.
The worst tragedy struck when the company killed 16 Ghanaians on Wednesday, 23 January 2019, according to a Minerals Commission’s committee report. The victims’ families have not been compensated since then, and those responsible for the murders have not been prosecuted.
A number of residents have become amputees through the company’s operation, including a young nurse, Thomas Agombire, who is not the company’s employee. The company is not showing any readiness of compensating any of them despite a demand and a push for it.
Minister visits chief who is Shaanxi’s main supporter
The Chief of Tongo, Kugbilsong Nanlebegtang, has been backing the Chinese company since he became Tongraan in 2015.
When he was the Member of Parliament for Talensi, he constantly spoke against the Chinese company and supported the small-scale miners in the area.
Now a major spokesperson for the Chinese, he is at war today with indigenous small-scale miners who disagree with the foreign firm and he is hardly heard publicly speaking against any human rights violations associated with the company.
The chief was quoted recently by a local media house to have said any claims that the Chinese companies were exploiting the people of Talensi were propaganda.
The sector minister (Buah) visited his palace during his recent tour. The chief told the minister during that visit that some people were acting on behalf of the communities in the district as negotiators of a proposed agreement between those communities and the Chinese mining companies operating in the area.
He said he found the people disrespectful and their actions insulting, and added that nobody should have anything to do with them because, according to him, they did not have the mandate to execute such a negotiation.
Although he avoided mentioning names, many believed he was referring to the Talensi Mining Communities Initiative (TAMCI), an internationally connected advocacy group widely respected and known across many countries for championing the collective interests and rights of all the mining communities in the district.
The chief’s statement later attracted reactions from some indigenes, who described him as more disrespectful himself and his actions more insulting for publicly denigrating the Nayiri― the King of Mamprugu Kingdom, Naa Bohagu Mahami Abdulai Sheriga― in 2018 at the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs.
The Nayiri, who installed the Tongraan, had submitted a letter to the house that year, requesting that the Chief of Namoalug, Nab Kolsong Na-Laam Nyuurib, be registered as a member of the house. The Tongraan rubbished the letter and, writing through his own secretary, told the house to throw the Nayiri’s letter away.
His action against the Nayiri stemmed from his failed attempt to install a chief for Namoalugu, a Talensi community within the Mamprugu Kingdom.
He had written to the Nayiri, asking for permission to install chiefs for Namoalugo and some four other communities situated in Talensi― Nungu, Tolla, Bapela and Digaare.
The Nayiri rejected his request because those areas were directly (and they are still directly) under the Nayiri’s authority and the royal skins of the five areas, according to the Nayiri, were older than the Tongo skin.
‘We’ll punish you if you cut corners!’― Minister warns Cardinal Namdini
The minister also toured the site of Cardinal Namdini Mining Limited, another Chinese mining company operating in Talensi, where he told the management to follow proper procedures or have its licence revoked.
“There are laws, there are guidelines, there are regulations. If we all operate within this framework, there won’t be a problem. We want you to operate within the rules, framework. Don’t cut corners.
“If you cut corners, we will punish you! And remember we have the power to take the licence tomorrow morning. It’s just a right; we would take it tomorrow morning. Please, it’s important, play by the rules of Ghana,” he emphasised.
Cardinal has faced at least three demonstrations within the past two years. On Wednesday, 13 March 2024, a fight broke out between the company’s authorities and workers over employment conditions. Several people were physically attacked and beaten during the incident.
One of the many concerns the Ghanaian employees raised during that protest was that the wages they were being paid were less than even the cigarette-smoking allowances their Chinese counterparts were receiving from the company.
In the early hours of Saturday, 7 September 2024, a bus carrying twenty-two workers of the company somersaulted twice close to the company’s site.
One person died in the crash and was buried the following day, according to reports. Eighteen of the victims were admitted to the Upper East Regional Hospital and three were referred to the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) in the Northern Region.
While the victims were receiving medical treatment, their colleagues, who were not involved in the crash, staged a demonstration against the company’s management at the site on the day of the accident.
They said the crash was the fourth bus accident the company’s employees had suffered since the firm began operations in 2020 in Talensi.
An employee was sacked at one time by one of the Chinese mining companies after a work injury left him permanently disabled. Others were threatened with dismissal by another company for speaking about workplace abuses to the press.
Watch below a docufilm showing more about the tragedies involving one of the Chinese companies and the neglect of the victims.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/ mwbonline.org/Ghana/ West Africa
