May 2006, Tasneem Salam, Frédéric Giovannetti / Newmont Mining Corp., International Finance Corporation (IFC)
The Ahafo South Gold Mining Project (“the Project”) entails significant displacement impacts, and more broadly social impacts of significance on the neighboring communities. The implementation of the Project by Newmont Ghana Gold Ltd (NGGL, “the Company”) has been on-going since April 2004. Compensation and resettlement activities have proceeded to make an inhabited area roughly 3000 hectares in surface available, while construction in this area of the mine and plant has been on-going since then and is currently nearing completion.
Two earlier reviews focusing only on the resettlement and compensation components were undertaken in July and December 2005 by Frédéric Giovannetti, an independent resettlement specialist, under contract with NGGL. The reports of these reviews are publicly available at www.newmont.com and www.ifc.org. These early reviews were undertaken based on Terms of Reference (ToRs) jointly prepared by NGGL and the IFC, which focused solely on resettlement and compensation. During the first quarter of 2006, NGGL and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) agreed to broaden the scope of these reviews, and new General Terms of Reference were developed to encompass three broad areas: - Social compliance, including, but not limited to: resettlement and compensation, environmental compliance, health and safety compliance.
As far as social compliance is concerned, the new General Terms of Reference include the review of the following:
- Resettlement Action Plan implementation and performance
- Broad community consultation presented in the Public Consultation and Disclosure Plan (PCDP)
- Broad community development,
- Grievance system management and effectiveness,
- IFC Social policies and guidance,
- Social Action Plan (SAP from the ESIA).
To address the broader issues now in the scope of work of the External Compliance Monitoring, Ms. Tasneem Salam, independent social development specialist, was brought into the external monitoring team.
This 3rd review was undertaken by the two team members from May 1 to May 12, with a close-out meeting held with NGGL’s field team on May 10 and a debriefing at IFC’s Accra office on May 11. Since the last review, NGGL has started the implementation of two new social mitigation programs: the vulnerable people program, and the Agricultural Improvement and Land Access Program (AILAP). The activities of the reviewers have therefore focused on assessing the implementation arrangements and initial results of these two programs, in addition to checking on earlier recommendations and issues identified previously.
