Small Scale Miners at Obuasi are staging a demonstration against the NDC government, the Ashanti regional Minister as well as the Municipal Chief Executive of the area over the loss of their jobs.
The Small Scale Miners Association there insist though their operations are legal and do not cause any environmental problems, mining giant Anglogold Ashanti brought military personnel to shut their mining operations up. They have since been in their various homes unemployed.
Many of them are particularly angry because they claim to be members of the ruling NDC who support the party’s operations physically and financially. All attempts however to get their legitimate jobs back through government and party machinery have been unsuccessful.
One of them told rawgist.com; “we didn’t vote for Mahama to take away our jobs”. “We will vote against Mahama and the NDC parliamentary candidate come 2016 to show him we are not joking here”, another said.
The demonstrators threatened to wreak havoc on any party functionary who will try to cajole them into standing down especially the regional minister, MCE and other local party functionaries.
rawgist.com spoke to the Deputy Women’s organiser Esther Dagbale who sounded distressed. She says the NDC executives there have been to the regional minister’s office several times to discuss the issue but nothing has been done and explains that they are at their wits end. She confirms many of the demonstrators are NDC members and sympathizers who support the party in diverse ways.
