By Mildred Siabi-Mensah
Takoradi, Feb. 5, GNA – The Ghana Rubber Estates Limited (GREL) is likely to shut down one of its factories due to serious encroachment on their plantation by illegal mining activities.
“Should the decision be implemented due to the adverse impact of illegal mining on their operations and production, some 600 workers shall be laid off.”
“We are not able to access part of the plantation, once they take over the land, they destroy the trees over there, so we lose production”, Mr Perry Acheampong, Corporate Affairs Manager of GREL told the Ghana News Agency.
He added that the company was running into adverse water crisis which was hampering their production levels “we use a lot of water for the factory, now we have this water polluted by illegal miners, such that we cannot use the water in our factory operation.
At some point in time, we had to shut down temporarily our factory because of this issue and if it should continue, we may end up shutting down one of the factories which employs 600 direct staff”.
He therefore stressed the need for stakeholders in the sector to devise fresh strategies to help to resolve this issue as soon as possible to save the factory from collapse.
“We are collaborating with the security agencies on how best we can protect our concession against galamsey” he added.
GREL, he said, remained one of the largest agribusinesses in Ghana, playing a crucial role in job creation and economic growth.
“Urgent measures to protect the industry and the livelihoods it supports is the way forward at this moment” he said.
GNA