PIONS. The Russian group Nordgold has taken over the Yimiougou deposit located in the center of the country, in addition to the three deposits it manages in the North.
Par Africa Point (With AFP)
© ISSOUF SANOGO / AFP
Published on
Lhe government of Burkina Faso, which emerged from a putsch and which intends to diversify its partners, has decided to grant the exploitation permit for a new gold mine to the Russian company Nordgold, according to a report of the Council of Ministers published this Thursday, December 8. This exploitation permit planned for a period of four years on the Yimiougou site (North Center region) covering an area of 31.44 square kilometers, will allow a total production estimated at 2.53 tons of gold, according to the government. . The direct contribution of this production to the state budget is estimated at 5.3 billion CFA francs (8.1 million euros) and 648 million CFA francs (about 1 million euros) for the benefit of the mining fund of local development.
READ ALSOBurkina: in the Tiébélé artisanal gold mine
Security challenges that do not curb the Russian appetite
The Russian group Nordgold, founded in 2007, was one of the first to produce gold in the country, through its two subsidiaries, the Taparko mining company (Somita) and Bissa gold. It already operates three deposits in northern Burkina Faso, which has been plagued by jihadist violence since 2015, perpetrated by movements affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. In April, Nordgold announced the shutdown for “security reasons” of the Taparko mine. In recent years, to finance themselves, terrorist groups have taken over gold panning sites in areas where the Burkinabe state is virtually absent. Many experts establish a correlation between insecurity and the gold boom of the country, which arouses growing greed.
In Burkina, with about 70 tons per year and 17 industrial mines, gold production has become in a dozen years the country’s leading export product, ahead of cotton. The artisanal sector, or gold panning, employs 1.5 million people and generates an additional annual production of around 10 tonnes of gold, according to the Ministry of Mines.
READ ALSOThe warning cry of the populations of Tapoa, undermined by terrorism
Diversification of partnerships
In several French-speaking African countries, Moscow enjoys growing popular support when France, a former colonial power, is vilified there. Cooperation with Moscow has always existed, especially, as in other West African countries, during the time of the Soviet Union. Many young Burkinabés left to study in the region. There has been a marked loosening of ties between West Africa and Russia that began with perestroika in 1985 and culminated in the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Cooperation in Burkina Faso has been relaunched in recent years through the signing of a military cooperation agreement signed in 2018, then a Russian delegation was received in 2022, and a meeting took place between the former president of the transition Damiba and the head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov in September in New York. Burkina Faso is therefore not ruling out today re-examining its “relations” with Russia, according to Burkinabe Prime Minister Apollinaire Kyélem de Tembela. “We will try, as much as possible, to diversify our partnership relations until we find the right formula for Burkina Faso’s interests. But there will be no question of letting us be dominated by a partner, whoever he is,” he said on November 19.
And during a meeting ten days later with the French ambassador, he told him: “Burkinabe people are looking for a lifeline for their country and if this lifeline must come from a country other than France, why not ? Since the September 30 coup that brought Captain Ibrahim Traoré to power, Burkinabés have repeatedly demonstrated by waving flags of Russia, a country with which they want their new leaders to intensify relations.
READ ALSORussia – Wagner, the Kremlin’s phantom army