Charles T. Ndanbon (left) and Wei Xing own Yenyeya and Shaanxi respectively
A clash that came out of the blue between the Yenyeya Mining Enterprise and the Shaanxi Mining Ghana Ltd has gone to a High Court in Bolgatanga where the former is seriously seeking “relief for damages resulting from injury” reportedly caused by the latter and two other entities.
It never was expected that the two parties would end up fighting each other fiercely today as they had worked so close in unbroken harmony since they entered into a business partnership in 2008.
The Shaanxi Mining Ghana Ltd, owned by a Chinese tycoon Wei Xing, had been rendering technical support services to the Yenyeya Mining Enterprise at Gbane, a community in the Talensi District, prior to the clash.
Reports about an internal discord erupting between the two partners seeped into the public domain when Charles Taleog Ndanbon, a Ghanaian-born Managing Director of the Yenyeya Mining Enterprise who is credited with bringing Shaanxi to Talensi about 13 years ago, began to complain in the open about the same Chinese company.
According to Ndanbon, Shaanxi (the guest partner) had initiated a unilateral move to go into a large-scale mining business under the name “Earl International Group (GH) Gold Mining Limited” and had hatched a plot to take over the concession that belonged to Yenyeya (the host partner) and to exclude Yenyeya from the proposed large-scale mining regime.
Not too long ago, he also publicly claimed something incredible happened to him as he was making his way one day to his office which was inside the Gbane yard he shared with Shaanxi. He said when he was about to drive into the compound freely as usual of him as a host and a boss, he was disallowed at the gates to the ‘Jericho Walls’ by the security personnel who, according to him, said they had been strictly instructed by the Shaanxi chief, Wei Xing, to keep him off the yard. He also said he reported the development to police upon advice from confidants. And weeks later, he headed for court. But before then, he had recapped some of the complaints in a press statement also seen on social media platforms.
Statement of Claim
A Statement of Claim attached to the Writ of Summons, which also was dispatched from the High Court to Wei Xing as 2nd Defendant and the Earl International Group (GH) Gold Mining Limited as 3rd Defendant, has the Yenyeya Mining Enterprise also seeking for a court declaration that Shaanxi (the 1st Defendant) is in breach of a “Contract Mining and Management Agreement” purportedly executed between Yenyeya and Shaanxi on September 24, 2008.
The Plaintiff (Yenyeya Mining Enterprise) also wants the court to order for the appointment of “an independent professional auditor” to audit the “mining operations and other related activities” that have been carried out inside the Yenyeya Mining Enterprise’s concession from 2008 to date.
Besides, the Plaintiff is praying the High Court to pronounce a restraining order “in the nature of a perpetual injunction” stopping Earl International Group (GH) Gold Mining Limited “from doing illegal mining and related activities” in the Yenyeya Mining Enterprise’s small-scale concession and from entering the concession until the court case is over.
Furthermore, the Yenyeya Mining Enterprise is seeking “relief for damages resulting from injury caused to Plaintiff’s rights by the willful and malicious conversion of Plaintiff’s ownership of its small-scale mining concession by the defendants”. It is also looking for relief for “damages sustained from injury to Plaintiff’s property resulting from breach of contract and the unauthorised and wrongful exercise of control over Plaintiff’s concession by the defendants”.
The Yenyeya Mining Enterprise, in the last paragraph of its Statement of Claim, wants the court to declare an order for Shaanxi Mining Ghana Ltd to pay the Plaintiff “produce of gold due and owing for the last three years as well as interest on the said debt at the prevailing commercial bank rate until the date of final payment”.