West Africans Ask Miners For More Training, 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 local people.

Those were some of the concerns expressed by government officials from Mali, Burkina Faso, Cte d’Ivoire, Togo and Canada, when they participated in a roundtable discussion hosted and moderated by Iamgold (IMG-T, IAG-N) on March 2, during the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto.

Addressing the crowd in French, Mamadou Igor Diarra, Mali’s mines minister, said his country needs support to develop the energy sources that could power the projects mining companies want to build. He noted that the money received from mining goes toward education, health and social development programs.

Diarra also said mining companies should spend more on training people so that locals have transferable skills that will be of use when mines shut down. He said restoration should be addressed in more detail before the project starts, and he questioned whether old mine sites could be transformed into training sites.

Abdoulaye Abdoulkader Cisse, minister of mines for Burkina Faso, agreed with Diarra that mining companies should have a better system for restoration. Cisse said funds should be provided for restoration before the mine goes into operation.

Lack of infrastructure and a need for training are two of the main challenges that mining companies face in West Africa, said Iamgold CEO Joseph Conway.

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

Conway said another big challenge is addressing the 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. . . political, local and community perception, which were all negative,” Conway said.

More communication on all levels is needed, he added.

Iamgold holds stakes in several gold mines in West Africa, namely the Sadiola and Yetala mines, operated by AngloGold Ashanti (AU-N, AGD-L), in Mali, and the Damang and Tarkwa mines, operated by Gold Fields (GFI-N, GFI-J), in Ghana.

Nicolas Lepage, Canada’s regional trade commissioner for West Africa, says transparency of both governments and mining companies has an impact on perception.

“Quite often communities don’t see what companies are spending in terms of money and what they are giving to a country,” said Lepage, who is based in Senegal.

Lepage said the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an organization that advocates for companies and governments to disclose payments from resource companies, has developed a global standard for disclosure that is being implemented in many places to improve transparency.

“Quite often communities and regions will receive mining royalties from companies,” Lepage said. “We all agree it is really important for governments and companies to publish that.”

Many developed countries, including Canada, are signatories of EITI while many developing countries, like those in West Africa, are listed as candidates for the program. The initiative is a coalition of governments, companies, civil society groups, investors and international organizations.

All 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 underdeveloped mineral wealth.