Madam Joyce Aryee, CEO of the GCM and Mr Norm Greenwald, Vice President and Secretary of the ICMI told the Daily Graphic in separate interviews that member companies’ desire to attain and maintain clean records on issues regarding cyanide spillage was enough to get them comply with the demands of the code.
The institute is a global body of gold mining, cyanide producing and transporting companies that aims at meeting the demands of the International Cyanide Management Code’s specifications for companies.
Companies seeking to join the institute normally does that on a voluntary basis, an arrangement that is said to possibly tie the hands of the institute especially when it comes to issues of punishing defaulting members.
The institute’s current punishment for non compliance to the code is delisting the said company from the group, a punishment Madam Aryee and Mr Greenwald said was harsh enough to get members comply with the code.
The two spoke to the paper after addressing participants at a workshop jointly organised by the chamber and the institute on the implementation and auditing of the International Cyanide Management Code in Accra.
The one-day workshop was aimed at assisting gold mining companies, cyanide producers and transporters as well as other stakeholders in the mining business with requisite information on the demands of the code.
“Punishment is not only about fining defaulting members to pay certain amounts of money, it is about the reputation that these companies need from the public. Remember they have shareholders world-wide and would always want to maintain a good image in the eyes of thier shareholders by sticking to what they said they are doing,” the GCM CEO said.
She observed that people world-wide had awoken to issues regarding the environment “and would not take it kindly to a company that said it is a member of the ICMI and for that matter practicing and implementing safe cyanide procedures only to be seen going contrary to that.
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| Madam Joyce Aryee (with microphone), CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Mines. |
Madam Aryee was however confident that companies that have subscribed to the code both in Ghana and globally would live-up to expectations when it comes to the implementation of the code.
According to her almost all the gold mining and cyanide producing and transporting companies in the country have signed onto the code “except those that have just started pouring gold.”
Madam Aryee was meanwhile hopeful that such companies would soon come on board “and conform to this internationally acceptable best practice for cyanide management.”
Expressing his views on the ability of the ICMI to get its volunteered members to comply with the code, Mr Greenwald also said “our power is the public’s ability to judge which company said it is doing what but not doing that.
“I think it is a big disincentive for a company to say it is doing something (abiding by the demands of the code) and has thus become a member of the institute only to be ejected for not doing that thin.”
The International Cyanide Management Code was developed in 2005 as a wake-up call to the Romania cyanide spillage around that period and to also serve as an industry voluntary program for gold mining companies world-wide. It currently has 102 companies in 45 countries, including those in Ghana signing onto it.
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