The residents want the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to engage AGA to release its abandoned concessions to them to use for community mining in order to reduce the unemployment rate and illegal mining in the area.

Addressing the press after a health walk, the Secretary of a youth group, Appianin-Bonsec Fun Club, Anthony Coffie Nature, called on the government to, as a matter of urgency, ensure that such illegal activities are halted.

“We stand for the public good because we know of the enormous benefits of the Mine to the economy of Obuasi and the economy as a whole. We will therefore not countenance the resurfaced encroachment activities by some illegal miners on the concession of the mining company over the simple reason that, Obuasi cannot survive another shut down of the mine and its catastrophic consequences as it happened in 2014. We appeal to the President, the sector minister and Regional Minister to take all steps to resolve the matter immediately.”

On January 22, 2019, President Nana Akufo-Addo said the circumstances that led to the shut-down of the AngloGold Ashanti Company Limited at Obuasi in the Ashanti Region would not reoccur under the watch of his administration.

He said this at the re-opening of the AngloGold Ashanti gold mine, which had been closed since 2014.

“I assure management and staff of the mine that the sequence of events that led to the closure of the mine will not recur under the watch of this Government. The days of forceful encroachment on the concession of the company, as witnessed between 2010 and 2016, are over.”

AngloGold Ashanti’s Obuasi Mine shut down in 2014 because it was operating behind a development schedule for three years.