Blessed with gold but Cursed with underdevelopment; the sad Gbane Story
Saturdays are usually days I stay off work to concentrate on other equally important ventures and spheres of my life.
But this past Saturday, I had to join a team to Gbane; a community in the Talensi District in the Upper East region. Our mission there was to join the town folks clean their environment.
However, like I have always done, I try my best to explore and ask more from the local folks.
Gbane is one of the biggest mining communities in the Upper East region. Although in the Upper East region, its areas are mostly named after mining communities and towns in the Southern part of Ghana. Names of Areas in Gbane include Tarkwa, Obuasi, Kejetia. Gbane is occupied mixed raced; both Ghanaian and other nationals.
One does not need to be technical to tell the community is rich in gold and the dominating profession is mining which both and young are engaged in. Each house in the community has a spot where sand is washed for gold; a clear indication that no one is left out in the search for gold.
Atanga Bismark tells me “on a bad day we can make like two hundred cedis but when things are ok we achieve more than that. The gold business here is good and if you like work you will make it. People have even come from the towns to be here to look for money, it is good here”.
However, the Gbane community with the riches Atanga boasts of is a slum, lawless and unkempt community where the strongest survives. Most water bodies in this area have been destroyed by illegal miners who mine even closer to houses and settlements.
Open Defecation
The Gbane community although rich in gold with the presence of foreign nationals who are mining for gold in the area, has failed in the fight against open defecation. According to the Assemblyman of the area, Alex Gbevanzong, 99% of the people in the area engage in open defecation. He indicated that the menace has had a toll on the community as sometimes some individuals defecate at the banks of a river which is the most trusted source of water for the people.
Access to Potable
People in Gbane face difficulty in accessing potable water. The community has four boreholes however, only one of the boreholes works to perfection. The community has to depend on water from the White Volta which is mostly polluted by people engaged in open defecation. Access to potable water is a problem for the people who live their lives all day in search of gold.
“We don’t have water. The boreholes in this area are five in number but currently, the whole community depends on one because the others are not functioning. We have to compete with animals for water and that is a very sad thing in this community. We need boreholes so our water needs will be served,” Alex said.
Education
The community blessed with gold has two basic schools. One private school and a public school. However, attendance to these schools is poor as children of school going age choose to mine for gold rather than “waste” their time on education. Alex the Assemblyman thinks efforts should be made to encourage children in the area to take education seriously. He believes that the number of schools in the area should be increased in order for children of school going age to have choices to choose from.
The story of the Gbane community is one of the examples of the many mining communities that have had to suffer under development although they are blessed with natural resources that could build their communities.
It behoves individual community elders and the District Assembly to work at ensuring that mining companies that come to the various communities see the need for developing the communities in which they find themselves rather than just exploiting the people for their benefit only.
BY: Offei-Akoto Ayeh/a1radioonline.com/Ghana
