Illegal Mines Run by Chinese in Ghana
10,000 Chinese immigrants have come to the West African country of Ghana over the past few months. There have been rising tensions between the native population and the Chinese miners. There have been reports of violence between the two ethnic groups, and the mining company's owned by Chinese business men.The Ghanaian environment has been degraded due to the mining practices occurring. In addition to the environmental degradation there are extremely poor working condition to the native workers as well as the Chinese immigrants.
olsonfarlow.com
The main issue with the existence of this gold mine is that due to Ghana government regulations the mine should not even be in existence. In 2012, Ghana produced 4.2 million ounces of gold, at an average value of $1,668 per ounce. Nearly 23% of all gold mined in Ghana is from small scale mines like the one pictured above. "More than 250 rivers in Ghana's mining communities have been reportedly poisoned by heavy metals and cyanide, raising worries about the quality of drinking water," as reported by The Guardian. The big issue with these Chinese gold mines, is that there are now more illegal mines in operation than legal ones, and this is causing extreme environmental damage along side the human labor impact.
Reuters
What will the business implications be btween China and Ghana be in the future?
We will have to wait and see what the Ghanian Government does to either stop this illegal mining or what kind of environmental and labor regulations can be imposed.
Work Cited
No comments:
Post a Comment