The head of the Transitional Military Council in Mali, General Asimi Ghoya, supervised yesterday, Monday, to lay the foundation stone for the new gold refinery project, which will have the ability to treat 200 tons annually.
During the inauguration ceremony, Geta said that Mali since 1980 has exported her raw gold abroad as it is repeated and sold, and this deprives the country of significant financial returns that can be used in the development of the local economy.
According to government sources in Bamako, the new project is the fruit of a partnership between the financial state on the one hand, and the Russian company Yadran on the other hand, and the official share is more than 60%, and after its operation the country will produce 4 times its current production that stopped in the past at the threshold of 51 tons.
Regional center
For his part, Eric Salekov, head of the Russian Yadran Group, which is building the project, said that the new refinery will be a regional center in West. Africa To refine the extracted gold, not only in Mali, but will also include some neighboring countries such as Burkina Faso.
The West Africa region is one of the most prominent gold producing places in the world, but it lacks a globally recognized local refinery, despite attempts to obtain it previously by the Ghana State, which is listed in the list of countries producing the yellow metal.
The absence of refining refineries in smuggling gold from West Africa contributes to many countries of the world, and the inability to accurately control production.
According to international reports, the region African coast It is witnessed annually the smuggling of hundreds of tons of gold, and armed movements are considered a source of financing and profit reaping.
At the beginning of this week, a report issued by the “Swiss Ed” organization said that the state of Ghana lost in 5 years 11 billion dollars due to craft gold that is widespread in the country.
Go to reforms
The inauguration of the new refinery coincided with efforts launched by the Military Council since its coming to the authority in 2021, in which he pledged to re -control the mineral resources, especially the gold, which is the most national exports.
In the year 2023, the government approved a new mining law that allows the state to possess major shares in all national mines, and exempt the western companies from the privileges they enjoyed, such as tax exemption for some imported equipment.
The 2023 Law caused a crisis between the government and companies operating in the field of mining, but most of them responded to the demands of the authorities and pay taxes of up to hundreds of millions of dollars, and this was rejected by the Canadian company Barric Gold and entered into a legal dispute with the financial state.
After a legal dispute whose pleadings reached the World Bank Trade Dispute Resolution Center in Washington, the Commercial Judicial Press in Mali issued a decision to operate the Lulu Gongoto mine under independent management for a period of 6 months.
The head of the Military Council, General Asimi Ghaouta, said that the new refinery will enable his country to accurately track its exports in the absence of approved ranks and programs to track production.