Resources Policy 52 (2017) 226–234
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Resources Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resourpol
Poverty and mine’s compensation package: Experiences of local farmers in Prestea mining community
MARK
Obed Adonteng-Kissi Department of Social Inquiry, College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Bundoora 3086, Victoria, Australia
A R T I C L E I N F O
A BS T RAC T
Keywords: Farmers Poverty Mines Compensation Impacting Community
The design and application of compensation package by the major large-scale mining company in Ghana's Prestea has not done enough to alleviate poverty of local farmers. This claim is made in the light of occasional food shortage and poor living conditions of local farmers. The mining company is to compensate and alleviate the poverty of local farmers for impacting on their farmlands has put a package together. Although expansive activities of the company have resulted in gold boom, unemployment and poverty have intensified in view of loss of farmlands to the large-scale mining company. Moreover, there are minimal prospects for local people to secure wage employment in the company's resuscitated gold-mining industry. It is therefore crucial to assess the capacity of the compensation package as part of the company's corporate social-responsibility (CSR) program to alleviate poverty of local farmers. This paper interrogates the strength of the package by rating its efficacy and impact on poverty alleviation. This paper demonstrates that the compensation is inadequate in alleviating poverty because the package is not commensurate with the value of the profitable farming industry.
1. Introduction This paper focuses on bringing to light the experiences of local farmers in Ghana's Prestea agrarian and mining community and the ratings of community compensation package by Golden Star Resource (GSR) as a practical tool to alleviate poverty. The Prestea local community economy encompasses agrarian and mining sectors. The government of Ghana is vigorously attempting to attract both foreign and domestic large-scale mining entities in attraction of investment capital into the country's mining sector. While mining is relevant to the national economy, a significant number of local farmers are prone to dispossession due to alterations in land use even though, improved investment may generate fresh prospects for local livelihoods and the national economy. There are concerns relative to procedural justice, people's rights to self-determination, distributive justice and people's rights to fair compensation for forfeiting their assets and access to their resource. Blodgett et al. (1997) submit that procedural justice is the seeming policies, procedures and standards utilized by decisionmakers in negotiation and settling differences. Procedural equity is reached through involvement in decisions that accomplish a fair distribution of those problems. Equitable procedures are regular, balanced and neutral, representative of all parties and are grounded on correct evidence and on ethical principles. Equitable procedures permit principal parties to contribute to the decision making process. Additionally, Turpel (2016) conceptualises self-determination as a
E-mail address: dontosh@yahoo.co.uk. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2017.03.007 Received 9 August 2016; Received in revised form 3 October 2016; Accepted 16 March 2017 0301-4207/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
requirement for all culturally and historically distinctive population to have the right to decide its political position through democratic principles. Thus, the concept of liberation symbolises self-determination. The provision of self-determination in legal document has corresponded with an amazing evolution of political landscape. Furthermore, Harris et al. (2013) explain that parity in remedy expected by the individual is addressed by distributive justice. Thus, distributive justice examines the compensation that is expected by disgruntled local populations in exchange for their troubles. The rights to fair compensation is a legal requirement that ensures that considerations of justice are the general character of the practice. However, these possible considerations of justice are strengthened significantly by other motives such as social welfare enhancement, accomplishing administrative efficiency, promoting valuable but dangerous ventures and safeguarding local populations against destructive enterprises. The National Land Policy (NLP) makes provision for the right of local populations to fair compensation. NLP (1999, 9) asserts that: “no interest in or right over any land belonging to an individual, family or clan can be compulsorily acquired without payment, in reasonable time, of fair and adequate compensation”. However, Kidido et al. (2015) observe that there is difficulty in determining rightful claimants, fair compensation for claimants and the conditions under which such claims can be made. Adonteng-Kissi (2015) suggests that differences amongst community stakeholders over land use are due to fluidity in land ownership, control and rights, which are common in indigenous