A Chinese businesswoman known in Ghana as “the queen of illegal gold mining” will remain behind bars in the capital Accra until next month when she and three co-accused will face court again.
An Accra Circuit Court on Tuesday dismissed a bail application by lawyers for En Huang, also known as Aisha Huang, and three other Chinese nationals accused of mining, selling and buying minerals without a licence.
All four have denied the charges.
Arguing against bail, prosecutors said the accused might interfere with investigations and pose a flight risk. The court ordered Huang and her co-accused to remain in police custody until October 12 when they will again appear.
The case is being closely watched in the West African nation, where Chinese players have revolutionised small-scale gold mining, leading to environmental problems and social conflicts, observers say.
Huang’s case also prompted authorities to renew a crackdown on the sector, known in Ghanaian as galamsey, or “gather them and sell”.
Hundreds of illegal miners, including Chinese nationals, have been arrested in the crackdown.
According to charges filed in the High Court in Accra on September 16, the attorney general alleges that Huang undertook mining operations at Bepotenten in southern Ghana’s Ashanti region between February 2015 and May 2017.
“Investigations disclosed that En Huang took over the farms of several farmers by mining around their farms and destroying access routes to the farms till they eventually gave over their farms to her for mining purposes,” the charge sheet said.
She was arrested in 2017 and arraigned before the High Court in Accra on charges of illegally undertaking a small-scale mining operation. However, on December 19, 2018 the attorney general entered a stay of prosecution and stopped the trial. That same day, Huang was repatriated to China and banned from re-entering Ghana, it said.
At the time, there was public criticism of the decision to deport Huang, with many saying the prosecution should have gone ahead.
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On September 2, 2022, Huang was arrested again in Kumasi, the capital of Ashanti, despite being banned from re-entry to the country.
“Contrary to the direction of the comptroller general [of Immigration], security agents received information that she had re-entered Ghana and was subsequently arrested on September 2, 2022, in Kumasi. The re-entry is in total defiance of the clear order of December 19, 2018,” the charge sheet said.
Ghanaian security agencies alleged that upon her arrest, Huang had in her possession two Chinese passports, one in the name En Huang and another in the name of Huan Ruixia, both with her photograph.
Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo waded into the case earlier, saying he was not sure whether Huang was deported back in 2018.
“When you have a situation like this woman [Huang] … I am not still sure whether she was in fact deported or whether she fled the country the first time and has now come back or whatever but there still seems to be some uncertainty about it,” he said in a radio interview.
“Whichever way it is, she’s become the sort of nickname for all that galamsey represents and unfortunately also for the involvement of Chinese nationals in Ghana in this particular illicit trade.”
Gold is Ghana’s top export, earning the country US$5.93 billion, or about 45 per cent of the West African nation’s total exports in 2020, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity data. Half of the gold is exported to Switzerland (US$2.99 billion), US$1.61 billion goes to the United Arab Emirates and US$853 million goes to India.
The abundance of gold, especially in southern Ghana, has attracted both multinationals and an influx of small-scale miners. These smaller miners contribute slightly more than a third of the country’s gold earnings, but most of them operate illegally, without licences or work permits.
Richard Kwaku Kumah, a researcher at the school of environmental studies at Queen’s University in Canada, said his research indicated there were many Aisha Huangs in Ghana operating illegal small-scale mines that could not be “touched by law enforcement officials”.
“Aisha is just one of the unluckiest ones because her face is already known to the public,” Kumah said.
He said that although small-scale mining was officially reserved for Ghanaians under mining law, Chinese players had revolutionised the industry in Ghana.
“They have introduced heavily mechanised and sophisticated earth-moving equipment into this traditional rudimentary mining space. This has increased the volume of gold production in the small-scale mining sector,” he said.
“But the government is not able to capture all the gold produced by small-scale miners as a large portion is also smuggled by the Chinese.”
Kumah said that only about 15 per cent of miners were regulated, and “the illicit involvement of Chinese miners in the broader sense is causing widespread environmental destruction due to heavy mechanisation”.
He said the presence of Chinese miners in some of these local communities was also escalating social conflicts due to increasing competition for scarce rural land.
Aisha is just one of the unluckiest ones because her face is already known to the public Richard Kwaku Kumah, Queen’s University
Anthony Kwame Morgan, a freelance researcher in Ghana, said Huang’s re-arrest was important in the fight against illegal mining in Ghana but it would be meaningless unless it led to the prosecution of “the faceless illegal kingpins behind the industry”.
“Through naming and prosecuting the big guys at the top, the situation can be addressed head-on. If not, the locally influential people in the sector would raise another ‘Aisha Huang’ to finance and support the venture, while they remain faceless and continue to benefit from such a bad venture,” Kwame said.
“Together, the Chinese illegal miners work with powerful locals … to benefit from this enterprise that is deleterious to the welfare of Ghanaians.”