Premises of Prestea Sankofa Gold LimitedÂ
DAILY GUIDE has gathered that six workers of Prestea Sankofa Gold Limited in the Western Region have been arrested for allegedly stealing tailings from the ball mill at the company’s mine site.
Prestea Sankofa Gold Limited is a state-owned gold mining company that extracts gold mainly from old tailings.
The names of the six, who used to work at the processing department of the company, were given as Peter Boateng, Emmanuel Appiah,  Joseph Kuwornu, Thomas Oppong Badu, Philip Larbi and Clement Baidoo.
According to sources, the suspects, while working at the processing department, managed to conceal the tailings, popularly called ‘gold sand’ in six separate polythene bags and wrapped them with a rag and tired it with rope.
It was also gathered that, the suspects later threw the stolen tailings into stagnant water near the processing plant, but were captured by the CCTV cameras fixed around the area.
DAILY GUIDE learnt that five of the suspects -Peter Boateng, Emmanuel Dada Appiah, Clement Baidoo, Philip Larbi and Thomas Oppong Badu- have since been dismissed from the company.
Meanwhile, one of them, Joseph Kuwornu has been suspended for three months without salary.
When contacted, the Managing Director of the company, Justice Acquah confirmed the theft and described the incident as a planned and well-coordinated robbery.
He noted that in line with Article 13, 01c of the Condition of Service of the company, a five member disciplinary committee was constituted by management to investigate the case.
“The Committee was to investigate the circumstance surrounding the incident and make appropriate recommendations to prevent future occurrence”, he added.
He noted that on that fateful day, Monday, May 8, 2023, after executing their alleged, suspect Kuwornu went and stood at the entrance of the ball mill while the other colleagues were coming out.
Prior to that, he said, it was established that suspect Larbi was the one who threw the stolen gold sand into the stagnant water but was unsuccessful and later went further to push it into the stagnant water which drew the attention of the Security guard.
Mr. Justice Acquah noted that per the narrations of witnesses, suspects and the footages from the CCTV camera, the Committee recommended the sanctions as prescribed by the company’s conditions of service.
The Committee also recommended that anytime the ball mill is opened workers should be searched before entering and exiting to ensure no foreign material is taking inside or out of the mill.
“It also recommend that security guard should be planted on top of the ball mill to keep constant watch of work done inside”, he pointed.
From Emmanuel Opoku, TakoradiÂ