An environmental and human rights organisation, Livelihood and Environment Ghana (LEG), has proposed a dialogue meeting with Earl International Group (Ghana) Gold Limited concerning the neglect of Godfred Nongbezina Nabil, an employee whose arm was cut off in 2023 by a machine in Talensi, a district in Ghana’s Upper East region, while on duty.
The organisation’s request for the meeting was communicated through a letter addressed by the Executive Director, Richard Adjei-Poku, to the China’s state-backed gold-mining firm, formerly known as Shaanxi Mining Company Limited.
“We write on behalf of Godfred Nongbezina Nabil a former employee of your company and resident of Datoko Community in the Upper East Region, who has reported loss of a hand, failure to provide artificial hand as promised and other unfair treatments following the incident that occurred while he was working for your company.
“LEG an environmental and human rights organization, we are deeply concerned about this situation and are committed to ensuring a fair resolution. To this end, we respectfully request a meeting between your company and Godfred Nongbezina Nabil to discuss the matter and explore a resolution. This dialogue is intended to provide an opportunity for understanding, reconciliation, and appropriate redress,” a portion of the letter reads.
How the young man lost his arm
Nabil had planned to watch a UEFA Champions League semi-final second leg between Manchester City and Real Madrid on Wednesday, 17 May 2023, after office hours.
But his friends and fellow sports enthusiasts did not find him on that Champions League night at his usual football viewing centre in the region’s capital, Bolgatanga.
Presuming that he went elsewhere to watch the match, they hoped to see him later and discuss City’s victory over Madrid together.
But they were shocked the following morning as they heard that he spent the night in suppressed pain inside the theatre of Ultima Platz Hospital in Zuarungu, Bolgatanga East District’s capital.
According to eyewitnesses, he was stretchered into the hospital at an emergency speed that night and nurses, on seeing him heavily soaked in blood with a broken arm dangling from around his right shoulder, almost pulled back from him out of horror.
About 24 hours later, 24-year-old Nabil (now 26) was ambulanced from that private hospital to state-owned Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), about two hours’ drive from Bolgatanga.
In May, 2023, the TTH doctors amputated the affected arm.
“I was asked to go and do maintenance. That day, there wasn’t anyone around there. When I got there, the rolling belt (a mining conveyor belt) was having a fault. There were a lot of stones inside the belt. I was trying to remove the stones inside the belt. I was aware that when it happens like that, you have to wash it (the belt) with water. But there wasn’t water around.
“The water that was underground there, I was managing with that water to wash the belt. Later, I turned to pick something. When I turned and was trying to move to the other side, I don’t know what happened, my hand got inside the belt. I was lying there. I was there [for] almost thirty minutes,” the young man told the author of this report in July, 2023.
He said his arm got trapped in a tractor-like machine called gathering arm and had bled for a long time before some mechanics managed to extricate him by cutting parts of the machine and sent him to that hospital.
He was intermittently close to tears while recounting the incident.
Treated, discharged and abandoned
Nabil’s relatives told this author in 2023 that the management of the Chinese company did not visit the young man since he returned to his Zuarungu home after the amputation at TTH in June, 2023.
They told Media Without Borders that Nabil June salary had not been paid as of Thursday, 13 July 2023.
“The management of the company only took care of the hospital bills when he was taken to Ultima Platz Hospital and the Tamale Teaching Hospital. Then, one of the workers gave us Gh¢400 (35 United States dollars). They call him a translator over there. We learnt the money was given to him by the company to be given to us.
“All other expenses— the transportation fares, the feeding costs and the everyday dressing bills—we are bearing them on our own. And since we came back from Tamale, they (the company) have not visited him to see how he is doing. We are not happy,” his brother-in-law, Ezekiel Wudaan, said.
A brother to the injured worker, Peter, said: “This incident has brought much grief to the entire family. He (Nabil) is being treated unfairly. Imagine the pain of losing a hand that feeds you at a young age of 24.”
His relations demanded compensation from the company and a scholarship for him to study a programme of his choice.
Nabil is not the only worker to have suffered an accident in recent times at the company. But he is the only one who did not die.
Emmanuel Asante died in an explosion in April, 2024. In November, 2023, Eric Frimpong was suddenly smashed to death by a loose rock about metres long, handing overhead.
In July 2023, Victor Abisiyine Ayine, went missing while on duty inside the company’s yard.
Nobody knew where he was until his younger brother, Jonathan, and some other relatives, who had sat through a sleepless night at home because he did not return from work the previous day, appeared unannounced at the company’s site the following morning and demanded his whereabouts.
His lifeless body was pulled out from a pool of wastewater inside the company’s yard.
In December, 2023, Kwesi Boalbil suddenly dropped on duty and, shortly after he was taken to hospital, died.
At least 16 Ghanaians perished in a 2019 explosion for which the Minerals Commission held the Chinese company responsible.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/Ghana
