Amina Tahiru, Chief Executive Officer of AC Zenon, has clarified that she raised concerns about illegal mining activities, commonly known as galamsey, occurring on her company’s concession in Asuom, located in the Kwaebibirim Municipality of the Eastern Region.
Speaking in an interview on Eyewitness News, Tahiru refuted claims suggesting that she was involved in galamsey.
Instead, she highlighted her efforts to engage local authorities and the community in addressing the environmental damage caused by illegal miners operating on her company’s land.
“If anything I am the one who is fighting them to protect their own environment. There was a time I went pleading with them and I had to tell them that ‘look around you, I am a northerner and I have acquired this concession. Forget about the degrading you are causing in my concession and think about yourself for the time.
“This, I said it in a durbar ground, I didn’t say it to one person. I told them, to go and check. You brought Burkinabé to this land.
“I don’t deal in rock, I do surface mining. The Burkinabé are on your land, leaching with cyanides, discharging the cyanides in the same river bodies that you are drinking from.
“But I may never drink water from Asuom but look at what you are allowing and I took a lot of pictures. In some of the videos you could hear my frustration, my voice and I took it to EPA,” she stated.
