Mining companies in Africa under attack

Date: 20 Nov 2007

Mining companies have accused the campaign group War on Want of using inaccurate and out of date information in a new report attacking them for pollution in Africa.

The campaign group, which is one of a coalition urging the UK government to introduce legislation to force companies to operate to UK legal codes abroad, said that Anglo American, AngloGold Ashanti and Vedanta are failing to abide by voluntary codes of conduct.

The War on Want report focuses on cyanide spills in Ghana which AngloGold Ashanti said date from late 2005, following which the company had cleaned the site up. The company took the mine over the year before, and had invested in new, better infrastructure and engaged with local stakeholders. Other accusations arising in South Africa and Zambia have brought similar rebuttals from the companies concerned.

War on Want have been criticised previously for a report that accused a number of retailers of using suppliers that exploited workers, but then refusing to give information to identify the suppliers concerned.

Bookmark with:

 Del.icio.us |  Digg |  reddit |  Facebook |  StumbleUpon

Comments

You must be logged in to add comments