Earl International Group Gold Ghana Ltd has dismissed media reports that an underground staff was killed by smoke in its underground workings.
Maxwell Zong, an underground Drilling Assistant was pronounced dead at the Regional Hospital in Bolgatanga on Wednesday October 22 after he was rushed in by a team of medical and safety officers of the company.
Contrary to reports that the underground worker was killed by smoke while working, the company says such reports are false and a misrepresentation of the events that preceded the death of the worker.
According to the company’s Assistant Public Relations Officer Albert Azongo, there is no established fact or evidence that the death was caused by smoke or gas inhalation as reported by a section of the media.
“The deceased worker was assigned together with his colleagues in a gang to a working area in the morning. He was not alone. By about 10:30am they moved to the station or waiting area to wait for the cage or elevator to arrive for them to surface. While waiting for the cage to arrive in the company of his colleagues, the deceased was seen suddenly falling off from where he was sitting. A colleague who was sitting next to him quickly held him while the others rushed to support. The emergency alarm was raised and he was within the shortest possible time attended to by a combined team of safety officers and a medical officer at the company and rushed to the hospital,” Azongo said.
He disclosed that in a bid to establish the cause of death, Earl proposed and requested for an investigation through a comprehensive postmortem. However, the family of the deceased opposed the proposal and declined to grant the request for the postmortem.
“As a company, the death of Maxwell in the manner it happened made it absolutely necessary for us to know what caused his sudden death for the purposes of establishing the truth and also to guide matters of compensation according to the law. Unfortunately, the family wrote to us turning down the request and stating their reasons for not wanting an autopsy conducted. It had to do with their belief and values as a family. So, for anyone to conclude and report that he was killed by smoke, it is unfounded. It is also not true that the deceased was asked to go underground shortly after blast as reported in the media. Blasts are conducted only at night between 7pm and 10pm. The deceased was for morning shift and went underground at 7am,” the company’s spokesman added.
He noted further that the company cooperated with the family and met all its obligations relating to the death, leading to a resolution of the matter in a manner that was satisfactory to both parties.
In a response to protest by some workers of the company on Thursday 13th November 2025, Mr Azongo said the action of the workers was unfortunate but explained that the matter is expected to be resolved in subsequent engagements with the protesting workers and stakeholders.
He noted that the protest followed an action that was taken against 35 workers who violated the company’s Human Resources Policy by absenting from work without permission for 5 days amongst other offenses.
“Our policy is that you get terminated if you fail to report for duty for three days without permission or plausible reason in a month. The records show that the affected workers refused to come to work for five days after several appeals to them. Their collective action was not sanctioned by their workers Union or leadership. Their concerns were not properly channeled. The decision to terminate their appointments with Earl is grounded on a long held and known policy of the company,” he said.
The company further said it has proposed to re-engage the terminated workers under a subsidiary company in order to mitigate the impact the decision may have on the livelihoods of the affected workers.
The Assistant PRO stressed that “Though we’re terminating their appointment with Earl for falling short of our guiding rules, we have resolved to let them have their jobs intact under a company that is providing mining support services to us. They’re however objecting because under the new company, they would be engaged as contract staff. That is the standoff in this matter”.
In a response to reports of poor ventilation systems at Shaft 3 as basis for the workers protests, the company described the claims as a shift from the initial reasons given by the affected workers for refusing to report to work.
The Public Relations Unit stated that following the death of their colleague staff on October 22, 2025, the workers declared that until a spiritual cleansing exercise is conducted, they would not return to work. The company explained that such an exercise would be conducted subsequently after engagements with the traditional authorities of the community and appealed that work resumes pending such arrangements.
“On our first meeting with the workers at the Shaft entrance on Thursday 23rd October 2025, they only asked for a day off which we granted. Subsequently we received reports that they want a spiritual exercise conducted to cleanse the working area before they resume work. Our checks with the Chief of the community revealed that he never made such a request. Subsequently, they raised issues of the blasting time for that particular shaft and requested a change of time of the blast, that was also considered and the schedule was changed. There can be no basis for their refusal to return to work. We are however still open to having further engagements with them on this issue”.
