West Africans ask miners for more training, better transparency

Mines ministers from West Africa say foreign mining companies need to become more transparent, help more with infrastructure development and provide more training to the local people.

Government officials from Mali, Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Togo and Canada participated in a roundtable discussion hosted and moderated by Iamgold (IMG-T, IAG-N), during the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention in Toronto this week. 

Mamadou Igor Diarra, mines minister for the Malian government, addressing the crowd in French, said the country needs the support of mining companies in developing energy sources for the projects they want to build. He noted that the money the government received from mining goes toward the development of education, health and social delveopment.

Diarra also said mining companies should spend more on training people so that they have transferrable skills that will be of use when the mine shuts down. He said restoration should be addressed in more detail before a project starts, questioning whether an old mine site could be transformed into a training site, he said.

Abdoulaye Abdoulkader Cisse, minister of mines for Burkina Faso, agreed with Diarra, that mining companies should have a better system for restoration. He says funds should be given for restoration before the mine goes into operation, not after.

Iamgold CEO, Joseph Conway, also said the challenges of operating in West Africa is largely its lack of infrastructure and training.

“That’s something we will commit to doing more of,” Conway said. “We recognize that’s something we need to do.”

Conway said another big challenge is addressing perception of mining, which is often negative, anywhere in the world.

“The industry has typically been very quiet about the negative perception of this industry,” Conway said. “It comes down to an understanding of the benefits we bring to the table.”

Conway said Iamgold has dealt with negative perception over the last 12-18 months.

“We have had a number of situations that dealt with perception … of political, local and community perception, which were all negative,” Conway said.

More communication on all levels is needed, Conway said.

All of the ministers present expressed worry that the world financial crisis would negatively impact their economies over the long-term, encouraging the crowd to invest in the region’s undeveloped mineral wealth.