At an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday 17 January 2024, the national executive board of the Niger Anti-Corruption Association – local section of Transparency International (Association nigérienne de Lutte contre la Corruption – section locale de Transparency international – CEN/ANLC/TI-Niger) made revelations about cases of fraudulent marketing of gold following the “Niamey airport gold affair”. According to CEN/ANLC/TI-Niger, the State of Niger has lost several billion dollars as a result of these frauds.
“According to our sources, this is a case of illicit trafficking in a large quantity of gold estimated at several billion CFA francs”, says CEN/ANLC/TI-Niger concerning the fraudulent marketing of gold at Niamey airport.
For the association, this case reveals large-scale corrupt practices in the chain of management of authorisations to exploit and market gold resources.
In addition to the gold seized at Niamey airport, the association claims that 1.4 tonnes of gold with an estimated value of nearly 60 billion FCFA was seized at Addis Ababa airport on its way from Niger.
A difference of 16.06 tonnes between the declarations
In addition, “Niger officially exported 235.6 kg of gold worth more than 6.45 billion FCFA to the United Arab Emirates. However, investigations from Dubai show that the United Arab Emirates actually imported 11.8 tonnes of gold worth 305 billion FCFA from Niger”, says Transparency International Niger.
Based on a scoping study on improving the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative’s (EITI-Niger) consideration of the artisanal and small-scale mining sector carried out in November 2022, it states that Niger’s actual gold exports to Dubai (United Arab Emirates) reached up to 34.26 tonnes, while only 18.2 tonnes were declared to the Ministry of Mines during the same year.
For CEN/ANLC/TI-Niger, this difference of 16.06 tonnes between the quantity of gold actually declared and the quantity that left Niger justifies the fact that Niger is at the heart of major corruption, which manifests itself in particular in the illicit gold trade and the marketing of illicit gold.
The fraudulent sale of gold at Niamey airport, combined with the seizure of 1.4 tonnes of gold and 16 tonnes not declared to the State, has cost Niger tens of billions of FCFA.
The illicit sale of gold fuels armed conflict and terrorism
Transparency International Niger also makes the link between the illicit sale of gold and the armed conflicts and terrorism suffered by the country and its neighbours, including Burkina Faso and Mali. “Armed groups take over gold panning sites in areas where the state is weak or absent. Their greed is fuelled by the boom in the artisanal gold sector since the discovery of a Saharan vein in 2012”, explains the association, citing a report by the NGO International Crisis Group.
The ANLC-TI/Niger denounces and condemns: “the corrupt practices that are skilfully maintained in the chain of artisanal exploitation and marketing of Niger’s gold resources” and “the vagueness that the current authorities continue to maintain around this airport gold affair” and calls on the public authorities to put in place a rigorous and transparent mechanism to control the artisanal exploitation and marketing of Niger’s gold.
In addition, Transparency International Niger has announced that it will be working in partnership with its sister sections to investigate cases of grand corruption involving Niger, particularly those relating to the marketing of gold.
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Ph: BNAF
