Patrick Appiah Mensah, the Managing Director (MD) of Heath Goldfields, operators of the Bogoso-Prestea Mine, says the company plans to invest about $20 million into socio-economic development within its divisional catchment areas across a five-year period.

He said as part of the plan, each divisional area would receive $1 million every year to be invested in healthcare, education, infrastructure, and enterprise development projects.

Speaking to journalists at Bogoso in the Prestea-Huni Valley Municipality of the Western Region, he noted that the projects would be managed by the community leadership together with the company’s experts to ensure that the money was used for their intended purposes.

Mr Mensah said: “We believe that this is a very bold initiative because we intend to do new things, so we are moving away from the one dollar per ounce mantra, to committing $1 million dollars every year for five years.

“This is a supplement to what the government is also doing to enhance the developmental needs of the communities.”

Touching on the sustainability of the Mine, the MD said: “We took this Mine at a time when it was completely collapsed, and less than a year, we have been able to re-sustain it and gotten it to a point a where we are producing gold.”

Mr Mensah stated that Heath Goldfields were in the capacity to develop the Mine, noting that they would put in place strategic investments to sustain the Mine in the long term

“Mining has been an area reserved for foreign players, so as Ghanaians operating this plant, there are some doubts about our capacity, but we see those doubts as a challenge to do things differently and in an ethical manner to prove the naysayers wrong,” he added.