According to the GCFU, over 87 Chinese small-scale miners have so far been shot dead by armed robbers at their remote mining sites, adding that this has justified Chinese mining firms' policy to arm their nationals with licensed weapons for self-defence.
The union warned against repercussion on Ghana and China’s bilateral relations, and therefore called for mutual understanding between the Chinese miners and the mining communities where they operate.
In a statement issued in Accra yesterday and signed by the union’s social policy co-ordinator, Haruna Nsiah, it regretted that some faceless groupings have been behind attempts to undermine the cordial relations that exist between the Chinese business class and the Ghana government, which dates as far back as 1960.
“Whilst GCFU over the years has worked hard with the Ghana-China Business Chamber of Commerce (GCBCC) to protect Ghanaian business interest and trade in China and that of the Chinese in Ghana, there are other interested and disguised persons undermining the mining sector,” he lamented.
“Last year, the GCFU attended all the business sessions held in China by the GCBCC to promote Chinese business interest in Ghana and advocated for the immediate amelioration of visa and other challenges confronting Ghanaian traders and businessmen to and in China. Whilst this advocacy is ongoing in the best interest of the Ghanaian businessmen, the reverse is true for Chinese businessmen doing legal transactions in Ghana's mining sector,” the statement said.
The statement denied reports in a cross-section of the Ghanaian media that some small-scale Chinese mining firms have been exploiting Ghanaians and treating them like slaves.
“Chinese men, like their Ghanaian counterparts, work hand-in-hand and do not remain masters as opposed to some other companies in the mining industry where by virtue of one's skin such persons become controlling and superior to the Ghanaian,” it explained.
It said that “the fact remains that many small-scale mining companies owned by Ghanaians use Chinese equipment and technology. It is this factor coupled with the low cost of Chinese labour that even in the most remote and uninhabitable terrains in the country, Chinese workmen find themselves working for Ghanaian owners.”
It maintained that the Ghana-China Business Chamber of Commerce (GCBCC) has since 2005 worked tirelessly to boost the mining industry by importing equipment from China to support the skilled labour.
“These combined efforts have been in futility as the locations of such industries are no longer attractive to identified Ghanaian skilled labour and in such difficult circumstances the GCBCC has resolved to promote the use of cheaper alternatives such as employing low cost Chinese skilled labour by Ghanaian business men,” the statement stated.
“As a developing nation in need of less expensive technologies as its drive for rapid economic development, it is sad to note how we are struggling with the reality that Chinese technology remains the most affordable."
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