Management of Maso Quarry Limited at Okobeyeyie in the Nsawam Adoagyiri Municipality has passionaly called on the Government through the Environmental Protection Agency EPA, Minerals Commission, and Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, The Nsawam Adoagyeri Municipal Assembly to act swiftly to cease all the illegal activities of encroachers on their lands and the buffer around their operating area to help save the company from the numerous physical and verbal attacks, frustrations, stealing the company receives from some residents at Okobeyeyie, a community in the Nsawam Adoagyiri Municipality where Maso Quarry is located.
About 60 indigenous workers of Maso Quarry Limited have also expressed fear of the collapse of the company due to the unlawful encroachment on their lands by some residents in the Okobeyeyie community despite EPA and Minerals Commission reserving such areas as buffer zone after it gave permit to Maso Quarry Limited in 2007 where the entire place was deep forest without any building.
The quarry company secured permit from EPA and Minerals Commission to operate on a 140 acre land the then forest area with a buffer zone purposely to ensure that their activities do not affect the community regarding blasting of stones.
Meanwhile, individuals who have unlawfully and forcibly encroached the buffer zones and lands belonging to the company are going round accusing the quarry company wrongly.
That the activities of the company is affecting their buildings hence calling for the close down of the company.
Such encrochers and individuals have failed to produce any permit saying the lands were sold to them by some traditional leaders in the community. Mentioned the name of the Chief of Okobeyeyie, Nana Opare Odei and one Nana Asaase.
Due to threats and daily attacks on the company, some indigenous workers fear of the collapse of the company which will make them lose their jobs at the end hence calling on EPA, Minerals Commission and the government to intervene.
However, reacting to the allegations levelled against the company, the Safety Officer of Maso Quarry Limited, Kingsley Agyemang, refuted such claims and said after the company was given permit to quarry, it compensated all farmers whose farmlands were affected with a total cost of Ghc 2,254.25 each and there were no encroaching activities on it buffer zones until recently.
According to him the company has renewed all it permits since its operations and has fulfilled over 50 of it cooperate social responsibilities extended to them within 6months of this year only.
Other Proposal from outside the Nsawam Adoagyiri Municipality are yet to be responded to and this has been one of their major priorities as far as the company exist to help develop the Nsawam Adoagyiri Municipality especially Okobeyeyie community where the company is located.
Additionally, he highlighted that, the company has honoured all its tax obligations to the Assembly and GRA saying, it has never defaulted.
He said, “this company has been in existence since 2007 and has employed about 60 indigenous people directly, what we do here is that before we do a blast, we do announcement in the community all over a day before the blast”.
“The blasting is always being supervised by officers from mineral commission, they come by their machines to detect the sound and the vibration and make sure we are within what they have prescribed for us”
“They have encroached our lands to do their farms because some of the members in their community rent the land to them so before we realize they have encroached the land, nobody gave them the permission to occupy the lands” he said.
The company is therefore appealing to EPA, Minerals Commission, NADMO and government to intervene because the workers don’t feel safe due to the series of threats they received from some chiefs and members in the community.
