Hundreds of residents from the Bogoso-Prestea mine’s host communities converged on Accra today, Wednesday, March 25, as a two-day national demonstration reached its climax with the formal delivery of petitions to the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, the Minerals Commission (MINCOM), and the Presidency, demanding the immediate revocation of Heath Goldfields Limited’s mining licence.
The Catchment Area Community Alliance (CACA), which coordinated the mobilisation, submitted the petitions calling on government to terminate the company’s leases and facilitate the entry of a financially credible operator to replace it at one of Ghana’s most strategically significant gold mining assets.
CACA alleges that Heath Goldfields secured its mining leases in December 2024 on firm assurances of immediate access to over $500 million in capital and the technical capacity to restart the Prestea Underground Mine, but that those commitments have not been met. The alliance says critical infrastructure and processing plant equipment promised in the company’s Strategic Mine Development Plan remain undelivered, and the Tailings Storage Facility is reportedly near capacity, posing risks to downstream communities including Dumasi and Bogoso.
Heath Goldfields was served a 90-day notice on December 29, 2025, effective January 1, 2026, to remedy the breaches, but CACA says little progress has been made since that notice was issued. That deadline, the latest in a series of regulatory ultimatums stretching back to a 120-day notice reportedly issued in October 2025, has now lapsed without a public government response.
The communities have also accused the company of pivoting to surface mining rather than developing the underground operation, describing the surface operations as indistinguishable from galamsey, and of carrying out blasting metres from the main Prestea-Borndie road without providing an alternative route.
Heath Goldfields Managing Director Patrick Appiah Mensah has maintained that the company employs approximately 1,400 workers, roughly 80 percent of whom are from host communities, and said a feasibility study on the underground mine is underway. CACA and former worker groups dispute those figures, claiming more than 600 of the approximately 700 workers employed under the previous operator were dismissed.
The Divisional Chief of Prestea-Himan, Nana Nteboa Prah IV, has separately written to Heath Goldfields demanding clarity on employment numbers, saying the company claims 85 percent community representation but has provided no data to support that figure.
The petitions place the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, MINCOM, and President John Dramani Mahama in a position of direct accountability. CACA has framed its demands as a test of whether regulatory notices carry enforceable consequences or serve only as procedural delays.
The government and Heath Goldfields had not issued formal responses to the petitions at the time of publication.
