Did Burkina Faso award a mining licence to Wagner, a private Russian security group? This is what the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, said on 14 December 2022 on the sidelines of the US-Africa summit, during a meeting with Antony Blinken, the head of US diplomacy. The President of Ghana went further. He elaborated on the reasons for the award of the mine site and its location. On the reasons, he estimated that the mine was given to Wagner in return for its participation in the fight against terrorism. The mine is said to be located in the south of Burkina Faso, towards the border with Ghana, which is a concern for Nana Akufo-Addo. We tried to verify these allegations in a three-pronged approach.
The first step was to analyse the legal framework that describes the process of granting mining permits in Burkina Faso. According to the Burkina Faso Mining Code and the decree on the management of mining titles in Burkina Faso, the country applies the “first come, first served” rule, i.e. the permit is granted to the first person who applies for it.
To ensure transparency, a register is opened to receive applications at the Mining Registry. The permit application is accompanied by a number of documents, including the feasibility study and the environmental certification. Applications for mining permits are examined by the National Mining Commission, which gives a favourable or unfavourable opinion. The mining permit is granted by decree of the Council of Ministers if the opinion is favourable.
According to our research, neither the Mining Registry nor the National Mining Commission has received or processed a gold mining application from this company. In both of these structures, no application has been received for a licence in the southern part of the country as the President of Ghana has suggested.
“No permit has been granted to Wagner,” according to the Burkinabe Minister of Mines
But the statement of Ghana’s President suggests that the licence was granted without following the relevant procedures. We were interested in finding out from the national civil society that is part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) steering committee whether the procedures for the granting of the licence announced by the President of Ghana were followed. Indeed, this college met with the Minister of Energy, Mines and Quarries, Jean Pierre Boussim on 20 December 2022 on the issue. At the end of the meeting, the Minister of Mines was categorical: “No permit has been granted to Wagner”.
Despite these assurances, the third part of our search for information led to a consultation of the mining cadastre registers to find out the owners of the mining sites located in the south of Burkina Faso.
South of Ouagadougou, six industrial mines were identified. The Youga mine in the Boulgou province is owned by the company Avesoro. It has been licensed since 2003. The permit expires at the end of 2023 and the company has started the renewal procedures. Avesoro’s Nétiama mine in Nahouri. It obtained its mining convention in February 2018. Nétiama has finished open-pit mining and has obtained authorisation to move to underground mining. The Ouaré mine (in Boulgou), again operated by Avesoro, obtained its licence in 2021. It was about to go into production when it suffered a terrorist attack in late January 2022. These three mines border Ghana but are owned by the Canadian group Avesoro.
Further investigation reveals that south of Ouagadougou there is the Kiaka mine, which has had a licence since 2016 granted to the company B2Gold. This company has sold the permit to West African Resources. Kiaka has completed its financing and the construction of its mine and it started in late December 2022.
Another mining site has been located around Batié. This is the Konkera permit, which has had a permit since 2015. Its parent company is Centramin. Konkera was vandalised last November. Centramin wrote to the Ministry of Mines to renounce the licence after unsuccessfully trying to sell it. Under the terms of the renunciation, the licence will fall into the public domain. The last company Wahgnion Gold is located near Sindou. The licence was granted to the company Gryphon, which sold it to Teranga Gold in 2016. Since February 2021, this company, which started mining gold in 2019, has been operated by Endeavour mining. No new licences have been given to any company in southern Burkina Faso in 2022. All companies operating in this part of Burkina Faso have had their permits for years.
Confusion with Russian company Nordgold?
The President of Ghana’s remarks came a week after the Russian company Nordgold was granted the Ymiougou mining licence in north-central Burkina Faso.
The Russian company has been operating in Burkina Faso for more than 15 years and this is not its first licence. It has been operating the Taparko mine since 2007, the Bissa Gold mine since 2013 and the Samtenga mine following a mining convention signed on 31 December 2019. In 2017, Nordgold submitted an application to operate Ymiougou. The national mining commission reviewed the application in February 2022 but noted the absence of environmental compliance. This document was completed in June 2022 before the dossier was submitted to the council of ministers. It was this long process that led to the granting of the permit on 7 December 2022 to Nordgold Ymiougou SA.
Pierre Balma
#Mines_Actu_Burkina
