The Cameroonian authorities have banned mining operations of three Chinese companies for non-compliant with contractual terms. Cameroon’s Ministry of Industry, Mines and Technological Development said on Saturday.

The companies, Hong Kong, Peace Mining and Lu, and Lang, the ministry said would no longer perform gold panning activities in the region of East-Cameroon.

The government ordered the companies to leave Cameroon. It appeared from the statement that Hong Kong company did not have documents authorizing it to carry out mining activities.

As for the Peace Mining and Lu and Lang companies, their departure is linked to a series of conflicts recorded between their employees and local populations which have resulted in deaths, in addition to the non-respect of the environment, according to the statement.

These companies reportedly contributed significantly to the degradation of the environment through the diversion of rivers, and obstruction of rivers by mud, which has had a negative impact on agriculture and livestock.

According to some NGOs, the gold exploitation activities in Cameroon of Chinese companies had caused the death of 34 people in 2017.

Besides, just for the first three months of the current year, several people have died as a result of landslides and land erosion.

Source: APA

Six miners were killed and two injured when the roof of a tunnel collapsed at a gold mining site operated by US-based Newmont in Ghana’s southern region, the company said Sunday.

“I can confirm six fatalities to you. Two others were treated at the clinic and discharged after the tragedy on Saturday,” said company spokesperson Agbeko Azumah.

The accident happened in the Brong Ahafo region, some 430 kilometers from the capital Accra, he said.

“The entire Newmont family is devastated by this tragic accident and our priority is to provide support to the families, friends, and co-workers of the deceased,” Alwyn Pretorius, the company’s vice president in Africa, said in a statement.

The firm said it had evacuated other workers at the site and that operations had been suspended to allow for an investigation.

“All other employees working in the area have been safely relocated and the scene of the accident has been secured,” Pretorius said.

“The police are on site and the appropriate government and regulatory agencies have been notified, including the Inspectorate Division of the Minerals Commission.”

Newmont, a US-owned mining company, is one of the world’s largest gold producers.

It runs two mines in Ghana and has been in the west African nation since 2006.

Saturday’s accident is the latest in the oil and gold-rich country.

In July last year, at least 22 people were killed after an illegal goldmine collapsed in western Ghana.

The accident was blamed on small-scale gold mining, known in Ghana as “galamsey,” which has recently been the target of a government crackdown on environmental grounds.

Ghana is Africa’s second-largest gold producer and exports of the yellow metal, along with other minerals and oil, drive the country’s economy.

The industry involves a number of major global players but small-scale, illegal mining has been a persistent problem and accidents are frequent.

In 2010, at least 45 people were killed when an illegal mine collapsed after heavy rains.

(Source: AFP)

French flag carrier Air France has announced massive flight cancellations due to strikes by cabin crews and ground staff for the fifth straight day over pay.

Air France announced on Friday that nearly 30 percent of its flights would be canceled across the country on Saturday.

The cancellation rate is believed to be the biggest during any Air France walkouts so far.

One-quarter of long-haul flights into and out of Paris will be cancelled. So will 35 percent of medium-distance flights at the capital’s Charles de Gaulle airport. Air France also announced that 30 percent of regional flights at Orly airport in Paris and other French cities will be cancelled.

Personnel have been demanding a pay raise. Executives, troubled by the strikes and resultant losses, have nevertheless remained defiant.

Jean-Marc Janaillac, the chief executive of parent company Air France-KLM said on Friday that the demanded six-percent pay raise would not be possible, adding that the strikes had already cost Air France 25 million euros per day.

Janaillac also claimed that despite an operating profit of 600 million euros last year, the airliner’s profit margin was only four percent, “the lowest of all European airlines.”

Authorities have offered a one-percent increase.

Labor unions, however, insist that workers deserve to benefit from years of belt-tightening measures by Air France that have brought the airliner back to operating profitability, after enduring effective wage freeze since 2011.

“We’ve been doing our part for years,” said Gregoire Aplincourt of the Spaf union, the second-largest among Air France pilots. “What we’re saying now is, ‘Invest in your employees.’”

Unions have called for further strikes for April 10, 11, 17, 18, 23, and 24.

The industrial action by Air France personnel comes amid persisting rolling strikes by rail workers at state-owned SNCF railways, as well as protests by students, public servants, energy workers, and garbage collectors.

Source: Presstv

Some Chinese miners taking advantage of the vagueness in the allocation of mining licences and the laxity of the administration in Cameroon are illegally engaging in semi-mechanized artisanal mining leading to destruction of the environment and many deaths.

Sidonie Maboue pulls her hands out of the muddy water to nurse her eight-month-old baby. Sitting on a piece of multicolored fabric, she has filled three bags of gravel with five of her twelve children under a blazing sun.

“These pebbles will be crushed, sifted and if you have the chance, you can find gold but it is difficult,” says the 45-year-old widow who sometimes earns 1500 F CFA, approximately $2.8, after several weeks of digging.

Around her, a hundred people noisily search the yellow metal in a chain work at the Kaye craft quarry in Ngoe Ngoe, a village in the region of East Cameroon. Men dig the earth, crush the gravel and dry the holes with a motor pump. Women collect gravel from muddy waters or prepare food in a makeshift kitchen. The children have fun on the back of their mothers or sleep on pieces of cloth spread on the ground.

In November 2017, Sidonie Maboue nearly lost her life when she went with other villagers to search for gold at a Chinese-owned site near Kaye. “As I ran to carry the earth, I heard the cries of the survivors returning from the site and the young people removed the corpses with shovels,” she says in a low voice. She says she takes these risks to feed her offspring. “If I do not do that, how are we going to live. Since the death of my husband, I am the father and mother of the house.”

Gold and death

That night, nine people who extracted the gravel in this quarry operated by a Chinese company called “Lu and Lang” were submerged by a heap 0f sand about ten meters high. “The Chinese have arrived with law enforcement to drive the villagers out of the mine sites to better exploit our resources,” Yaya Moussa, the village chief of Ngoe Ngoe, says, widening her small black eyes. “So the villagers were forced to come in the night, in the absence of the Chinese, to extract gold and find food for their families. It was during one of these nocturnal outings that the earth fell on them.”

As in Ngoe Ngoe, artisanal mining of gold through the use of manual methods and processes draws crowds in several localities in the Eastern Region. But, the vagueness in the allocation of mining authorizations often creates conflicts between local gold miners and expatriates. According to the Mining Code of 2001, only craftsmen of Cameroonian nationality are entitled to an artisanal exploitation permit. In recent months, this exclusivity is threatened by the presence in the artisanal sites of Chinese operators who practice semi-mechanized artisanal mining through the use of mechanical shovels and loaders, gravel washing machines and chemicals.

Semi-mechanized artisanal mining was conducted for the first time in Cameroon in 2007. In that year, the government had asked the South Korean company C&K Mining to conduct an operation to salvage some 13 tonnes of gold that was likely to be washed away by overflowing water from the Lom Pangar dam. The authorities knew that this decision violated the 2001 mining code, which does not recognize semi-mechanized artisanal mining. At the time, they  used the emergency situation as justification. Later, this act by the government was capitalized upon by some unscrupulous operators who started semi-mechanized artisanal mining of gold.

In December 2016 President Paul Biya promulgated a new mining code that recognizes semi-mechanized artisanal mining. However, this exploitation should be carried under Cameroonian law which states that the shareholding in the companies should have nationals controlling at least 51 per cent. This mining code could have helped to reduce the impact of the confusion around mining permits and the rehabilitation of mine holes. But, the decree implementing the new mining law is not yet signed by the Prime Minister.

When contacted, the regional delegate in charge of mines did not wish to comment. “The minister has launched a mapping campaign with drones to identify mining sites and operators pending the decree implementing the mining code,” said anonymously a director at the Ministry of Mines who said he was not allowed to speak to the press. “All the time we hear of reports of deaths in mining sites and, we do not know who is who.”

Meanwhile, semi-mechanized artisanal mining, although illegal, is already doing damage to Cameroon. In 2017, open and abandoned mining holes by operators of the semi-mechanized artisanal mine including Chinese left 50 people dead in the Ngoura, Betare Oya or Ngoe Ngoe communities in the East, according to NGO Forêts et Developpement Rural (Foder) calculations. This civil society organization reported that 250 mining sites opened between 2012 and 2014 have not been rehabilitated by operators of the semi-mechanized artisanal mine. It therefore, launched an online petition to get the Ministries of Mines and Environmental Protection to intervene.

In a video published by Foder on the dangers of illegal mining, a farmer tells how Chinese gold miners grabbed her land and destroyed her plantation with excavators. “The Chinese entered my field and started mining gold without my permission,” says Philiphine Boh. “The Chinese told me that it is the authorities that sent them and they will give me 70,000 F CFA ($ 131.2) for compensation. I said that this money is insignificant for a field of one hectare that they spoiled. Currently, I have nothing left,” said this mother of five.

Secret deals

The losses are not just human lives. In Ngoe Ngoe, a village of 2,600 inhabitants, Chief Moussa says that during the exploitation of gold the Chinese have destroyed rivers and that many domestic animals have been stuck in abandoned mining holes. Mahamadou Abdoulaye, a 42-year-old registered miner, noted that, “when the Chinese saw a local mining artisan, a Nagbata, discovering gold, they chased everyone out of the site including the artisans who have their card while we also paid, it’s not good,” he complains. “The government must intervene because these Chinese are threatening us.”

The local populations are often surprised by the Chinese presence in the mining sites. They wonder how these expatriate operators were allowed to exploit the gold on their land. The Center for Education, Training and Support to Development Initiatives in Cameroon (Cefaid), an NGO based in Yokadouma in the Eastern Region, reports that some local elites are signing secret deals with Chinese miners.

“An elite is collecting photocopies of ID cards from villagers under the pretext of wanting to bring in companies that will provide water, electricity and jobs to the village,” said Victor Amougou, Cefaid’s coordinator, who knows by heart the tricks these people use. “With ten photocopies, this elite can obtain 40 artisanal logging authorizations equivalent to 40 hectares of land. Later, the elite bring in the Chinese operator with whom he has a contract. The villagers who ate and drank are not aware of the deal and only notice the presence of the Chinese who have in the meantime offered envelopes to the mining authorities and military officials to be able to calmly carry out their activities.”

In addition to corruption, some Chinese in their greed for gold do not care about taxes. After the death of nine people in Ngoe Ngoe, some local NGOs and media reported that the site in which the tragedy occurred was operated by the Chinese company called “Lu and Lang”. Yet neither the reports of the local branch of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (ITEI) nor the tax services know the name of the company responsible. The local official in charge of mines in the East refused to comment on this accident, indicating that this file is being handled by his bosses. “This company is not registered in our books,” says a source at the Ministry of Mines. “No Chinese company has obtained a semi-mechanized artisanal gold mining license in Cameroon,” the source said.

In fact, this fictional company is the initiative of lady Lu, an economic operator of Chinese nationality, who did not wish to comment. After Ngoe Ngoe, she and her employees moved to Colomine, another mining town in eastern Cameroon, where they continued to mine gold at a site guarded by soldiers.

“The mining sector is a mafia,” concludes Victor Amougou. “This crime unfolding before our eyes does not benefit either Cameroon or Cameroonians, perhaps an elite who would have received 5 or 10 million CFA ($ 9,376 to $ 18,755)”.

Source: Ghana Business News

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday met with Cameroonian President Paul Biya, saying that China is willing to help the western African country’s sustainable economic development.

During their meeting at the Great Hall of the People, Li said both China and Cameroon are developing countries that share common interests in development.

China has provided Cameroon with assistance within its capability and never attached any political conditions, Li said.

The premier encouraged Chinese enterprises to invest in Cameroon and called for innovative cooperation in areas of infrastructure and construction of industrial parks.

Li called on both countries to safeguard liberalization, trade and investment, abide by market principles and business rules and oppose protectionism.

Li also hailed the long-term friendship between the two countries, saying that China is ready to boost political mutual trust and beneficial cooperation in the hope of forging ahead bilateral ties.

Echoing Li’s remarks, Biya said Cameroon appreciated China’s great support and assistance in areas of economy, social development and culture.

Cameroon will continue to advance friendship and cooperation with China so as to lift bilateral relationship to a new high, he said.

Biya is paying a state visit to China from Thursday to Saturday at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Xi held talks with him on Thursday. The two presidents witnessed the signing of agreements on economic and technological cooperation, human resources development, infrastructural construction and industrial cooperation.

Source: Xinhuanet