🇨🇩 DRC: Battle for Gold [ #Investigation ]
Chapter 1: A Cheerful Retirement

Do you have plans for retirement? Personally, I want to save enough money and then just sit at home growing cabbage. But not everyone finds such a peaceful lifestyle appealing.

For example, businessman and banker, former DRC Vice Minister Victor Kasongo prefers racketeering and asset grabbing. After years of serving his homeland and former Congolese President Joseph Kabila, he decided to pursue something more exciting — and tried to seize the gold assets of the Canadian company Banro (spoiler: it didn’t work out as he planned).

👆 If that kind of leisure activity sounds interesting, let me tell you how it went in practice:

But first, let me introduce you to the Canadian company Banro. Banro was unlucky — the company bet everything on Congo and spectacularly lost in a brutal African roulette.

🔸 Initially, Banro tried to enter the DRC gold mining sector in the late 1990s but failed because of the 1998–2003 war.

🔸 When Banro finally gained access to the Congolese deposits — specifically Twangiza, Namoya, Kamituga, and Lugushwa — it took about ten more years of design and construction work before the Twangiza mine poured its first gold bar in 2012.

🔸 By the time the second mine, Namoya, produced its first gold in 2016, the company was already doomed, though that wasn’t yet obvious. After the opening of Namoya, company workers were attacked by local militias of the Mai-Mai Malaika group, who made money from artisanal mining at the same site.

🔸 Between 2016 and 2019, Banro had to suspend its operations at least three times because of these attacks, and after four Namoya employees were kidnapped in July 2019, Banro declared force majeure and permanently ceased all operations in the DRC.

⏩ Some local insurgents — sure, that happens all the time in these parts. But did that really mean they had to shut down completely? ⏪

🔸 Meanwhile, starting in 2014, the company had accumulated heavy debt with its main investors — the American Gramercy Fund Management and the Chinese Baiyin Nonferrous Group. Due to constant disruptions, Banro became unable to meet its obligations, leading to a restructuring in 2018, after which Baiyin and Gramercy significantly increased their stakes in the company. In the end, the Chinese held about 32% of Banro — an important number, remember it.

🔸 In 2020, after declaring force majeure, Banro initiated a preventive settlement procedure with its local creditors in the DRC. And this is where Victor Kasongo Shomari entered the scene — former Vice Minister of Mines, mining entrepreneur, associate (and possibly distant relative) of ex-President Joseph Kabila, and a senior figure in banks and funds that managed the economic interests of the former president and his entourage.

🔸 Kasongo heads the Shomka Group, which, according to him, obtained control over Banro’s assets through a ruling by the Commercial Court of Kinshasa during that same preventive settlement process — or so he claims loudly everywhere.

The funny thing is that before this process, Shomka Group had absolutely nothing to do with Banro - but we'll discuss it in the second part. Scroll down. 👇

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🇨🇩 DRC: Battle for Gold [ #Investigation ]
Chapter 2: Racketeering — a DIY Kit

One does not need a PHD to do racketeering - it as simple as that.

Kasongo himself claims that in June 2020 Banro approached him and his group of companies to help secure the safety of Banro’s workers from the attacks of the local militias. Allegedly, in exchange, Banro gave Kasongo the Namoya mine — first for temporary management, and then permanently. :)

In reality, the former vice minister simply decided to snatch the assets of a dying company, using his connections and his position within the elite formed under former President Kabila.

Here’s a clear step-by-step guide for beginners on how this is done:

🔸 Victor Kasongo was not only a former vice minister but also a former board member of several major Congolese banks — Banque Commerciale Du Congo (BCDC), BGFI Bank, and President Kabila’s investment vehicle Kwanza Capital.

🔸 In turn, BCDC was Banro’s main domestic creditor in 2020. Official Gazette publications about the preventive settlement process show that Banro’s subsidiary Namoya Mining S.A. owed BCDC around $10 million.

🔸 Putting two and two together, Kasongo decided to exploit the system and use the preventive settlement process to take Banro’s assets for himself at the expense of other creditors.

To pull off this scheme, Kasongo followed this playbook:

🔸 He first leveraged his connections within BCDC and possibly the government, promising both parties a share of the potential benefits from transferring Banro’s assets into his hands.

🔸🔸 Then he approached the Chinese — Baiyin Nonferrous Group, which, as noted, had increased its share in Banro in 2018. By 2020, Baiyin apparently sensed where things were heading, decided to part ways with the unlucky Canadians, and accepted Kasongo’s offer. According to filings from the Company Register of Hong Kong, Baiyin obtained in his company the same 35% share it had in Banro.

🔸🔸🔸 Finally, Kasongo contacted Banro, demanding that, as part of the settlement process with BCDC, the Namoya mine be transferred for temporary management to Shomka Resources — a company from the Shomka Group, registered in Hong Kong shortly beforehand precisely to intercept Banro’s assets.

... And there is also an even more criminal nuance 👇

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🤔 Why Call It Racketeering?

It is possible that the ex-Vice Minister himself was responsible for the attacks on gold mines.

🔸 Victor Kasongo himself claims that Banro approached him and his company to help negotiate with local armed groups.

🔸 Now look at how these “negotiations” are described in one of the two company presentations prepared for potential investors at the Mining Indaba conference in South Africa in early 2024 (which can be accessed through Shomka Group Holdings’ website with a few simple legal maneuvers).

⏩ There is no evidence that Kasongo had any direct link to the militias attacking Banro between 2016 and 2019. ⏪

However, given that
🔸 the former Vice Minister hails from the same region where the Namoya mine (which had been persitently attacked) is located,
🔸 Banro suddenly approached him for help securing the site - and that he supposedly managed to “solve” the problem so quickly and effectively

It’s hard not to see a striking resemblance to a pre-planned extortion scheme.

A pre planned extortion scheme, that went totally wrong. 👇

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🇨🇩 DRC: Battle for Gold [ #Investigation ]
Chapter 3: A Bigger Fish

Picture this: a man sipping coffee on the Caribbean coast, breathing in the humid Colombian air. A month later, he’s appointed special envoy of the Congolese president, trying to navigate the twists of local politics — or rather, to find out where money might be siphoned from.

⏩ This is how the second key player enters our story — Luc Gérard Nyafé — whose group of companies called Stratégos is still fighting Kasongo's Shomka Resources for ownership of Banro’s former assets.

🔸 Nyafé is believed to be a South American businessman of Congolese origin who made his fortune in Colombia managing the investment fund Tribeca Asset Management, the Stratégos Group, and two mining firms — Auplata Mining Group and La Compagnie Minière de Touissit (Morocco).

🔸 In the DRC, he was virtually unknown until 2019, when he suddenly appeared at a meeting with President Tshisekedi in February 2019 (just a month after Tshisekedi had been sworn in himself) and was soon appointed his special envoy.

🔸 Luc Gérard Nyafé adapted quickly. Within a year of his appointment, one of his companies — Stratégos Group LLC — was selected as the contractor for the Special Economic Zone Maluku project near Kinshasa. By September 2021, it was already known that Stratégos planned to buy Banro’s assets.

⏩ At this point, Kasongo’s illegal scheme encountered an unexpected obstacle — the ambitions of the new president’s favorite.

🔸 Apparently, at some point Banro changed its mind about giving away its assets for free and demanded that Shomka withdraw from the site. Instead, in December 2022 Banro reached an agreement to sell its assets to Luc Gérard Nyafé, although the details of that deal remain unknown.

🔸 The only information available suggests that Nyafé sought Chinese investors for the purchase, as the holding that took ownership of the assets was named Oriental Jinzi (see the letter from Stratégos to Namoya Mining S.A. employees below). Locals believe that the investor is the company Zinji, noting the syllable swap “Zin-ji” / “Jin-zi,” although in Chinese "Jinzi" simply means “gold.”

⏩ But even here, things didn’t go as planned.

🔸 First, the special envoy apparently fell out of favor quite quickly — in April 2022 Stratégos Group LLC lost the right to develop the SEZ, and by April 2023 Nyafé had left his post entirely.

🔸 Second, it appears that before Nyafé entered the scene, in 2021, the Commercial Court of Kinshasa had already approved a debt settlement agreement between Banro and its creditors, leaving Shomka with certain residual rights to the mines. It’s quite possible that the settlement reached in April 2021, under the supervision of the court, allows Shomka to claim not monetary compensation but an actual equity stake — one that Stratégos now refuses to share.

To this day, Nyafé and Kasongo continue to dispute ownership of the mines — which, in the meantime, remain idle.

Who will eventually come out victorious in this story? Nobody knows. What we can tell for sure is who will actually lose - it is ordinary Congolese who will lose the most - jobs and tax revenues, while big guys try to sort things out.

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🇦🇪 UAE: Neocolonial Power or Intermediary
[ #InterestsAndAssets ]
UAE's Interests in Africa's Gold

⏩ Have you ever wondered why Switzerland is associated with gold and jewels?

🔸 For decades, Switzerland was a place where the business interests of rivals could meet. Nazi Germany and the Allies, then NATO and the USSR, all found a neutral marketplace there.

⏩ Today that kind of place is Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. In 2024 alone the UAE imported 748 tonnes of gold from African countries which almost matches the entire volume of Africa's official gold production.

Let’s look at where exactly African gold in the UAE comes from.

🔸 First, there are legal Emirati investments in a number of major gold producers in Mali, Sudan and Ghana.

The key projects are:

🔸 Sadiola complex, Mali — UAE-linked Ambrosia Investment Holding holds 50% of Allied Gold’s operations at the Sadiola gold mine in the eastern Mali.

🔸 Asante Gold, Ghana — UAE-linked Fujairah Holding and Emiral Resources hold significant shares of Bibiani and Chirano gold mines in Ghana.

🔸 Alliance for Mining, Sudan — UAE-linked Emiral Resources’ subsidiary operates the country’s largest gold mine in Sudan’s in Red Sea State.

🔸 Second, there is almost legal international trade

The UAE provides excellent conditions for gold trading - there is practically no transparency and compliance with international standards. Many governments use this quite openly and officially - at UAE refineries, gold from Rwanda (from the DRC) is found along with sanctioned gold from Russia.

🔸 Finally, criminal networks

The light-touch environment does not only benefit clever governments. It also helps armed groups who seize gold and buy weapons with the proceeds. One way to spot this is a gap between what Country X says it exported and what Dubai says it imported from Country X.

The biggest gaps show up in:

🔸

Mali - 95 t

🔸

Ghana - 85 t

🔸

Niger - 45 t

🔸

Nigeria - 40 t

🔸

Uganda - 35 t

⏩ Sometimes the UAE even supports the insurgents itself - only over the last weeks we’ve learned a lot about how interested Emirati groups support the RSF in Sudan and the Islamists in Mali, from whom the UAE bought two hostages for $50-70 million.

None of this means the UAE is the mastermind of a new colonial project, though. It shows that big business and organized crime always find it easier to meet in places where undercover affairs are allowed If the UAE didn't exist, another small, but trade-loving country would take its place.

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🥡 I'd like 60 to go
[ #MineralsInNumbers ]

How much money can a normal man earn in his life? Can it be $11 million?

⏩ Maybe yes, maybe no. But this - $11 million - is how much of mineral wealth is being sold to China by African countries each hour.

🔸 In 2024 China imported about $116.8 billion from Africa, of which resource sales to China made up around $95–$102 billion - call it about $100 billion.

🔸 The leading suppliers of the PRC in Africa are DRC for copper and cobalt (about $21.9 billion), Angola for crude oil (about $17.6 billion), South Africa for iron ore, gold and manganese, Guinea for bauxite (roughly $7.6 billion), then Zambia (copper), Republic of the Congo (crude) and Gabon (manganese and oil).

⏩ I bet you've never held such sums in your hands - neither have I. So, for better understanding - $100 billion equals close to 66 times the cost of the famous Burj Khalifa, commonly benchmarked near $1.5 billion.

🔸 Sadly, this is not enough to reach the moon. However this number would suffice to put at least one Burj Khalifa in each African country - and we would still have around 10 spare towers.

Given that enormous amounts of money, paid by the PRC for resources, do you feel like there could be a Burj Khalifa in your parts?

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💡 Resource Nationalism Index [ GHANA ]

Ghana is one of our favourite countries in the West Africa. Some time ago people used to call it "Gold Coast" for there is so much gold in Ghana that it almost literally lies underfoot.

However, when resources are abundant, they are also hard to control. Let's look into how Ghana copes with its wealth in our "Resource Nationalism Index" series.

Not surprising, gold is by far Ghana’s leading mineral export. Also Ghana exports some crude oil.

So, what do the policies of Ghana in relation to its natural wealth look like?

🔸 "Process It First" – 2/10 – Ghana has announced plans to impose some bans on unprocessed materials exports, however, even this only concerns minerals like bauxite, lithium and so on - without any restrictions on gold.

🔸 "Share With the State” – 6/10 – The government has the first right to purchase any minerals produced in Ghana before they are sold externally, should the government need those minerals for local industries or strategic purposes. Besides, Ghana's Gold Board has a monopoly to buy gold from small-scale miners.

🔸 “We’re in Too!” – 6/10 – The government is entitled by law to a free carried interest of 10% + large mining rights holders are required to list at least 20% of their equity on the Ghana Stock Exchange.

🔸 “The Money's Yours, the People Are Ours" – 9/10 – All small-scale mining is reserved for Ghanaian citizens, and in large-scale mining almost all employments must be localized within 3 years of operations.

🔸 “Just Pay Up" – 3/10 – For gold and other major minerals, the government’s revenue take includes only a 5% gross flat royalty.

🔸 "You Come – You Build" – 2/10 – Currently there is no separate community development requirements, however Ghana’s government has announced plans to introduce ones.

🔸 “We’ll Do It Ourselves” – 8/10 – New manufacturing entities in Ghana’s free zones may get a 10-year tax holiday. Additionally, Ghana has two major state corporations producing aluminium and iron, and a state-run oil producer GNPC. The state supports local gold refineries. Ghana also has a sovereign Minerals Income Investment Fund which takes stakes in mining.

🔸 “Come Here, You Bast*rd!” – 3/10 – there are no rebel groups, however, Ghana faces a serious challenge with illegal mining operations, locally called “galamsey”, which account roughly for 30% of the country's gold production.

Ghana gets a final score of 4.9 out of 10. Ghana is a country of contrasts - widespread illegal mining, primitive taxation and absence of raw exports restrictions coexist with strong local personnel promotion and the state's proactive role in investments.

#Ghana #ResourceNationalism

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How Do Offshore Companies work? (not the way you think)
[ #SetTheRecordStraight ]

The British Virgin Islands citizens are very, very talented and enterprising. The Islands host about 360,000+ active companies while the islands have around 39,000 people. That is 9-10 companies per capita.

⏩ Many people think mining companies register offshore to avoid paying local taxes. Sadly, many are wrong.

🔸 For long time in most countries in Africa and beyond, foreign firms have been prohibited from holding mining rights directly. The law asks them to create a local subsidiary for the license and the day-to-day work.

🔸 As a result one cannot just register an offshore entity and forget about taxes, which are in any case charged on the local subsidiary.

🔸 Yet companies continue to create intermediaries between the local subsidiary and the real owner, registered 5–7 thousand kilometres away from the pit.

⏩ So, why add an offshore layer?

🔸 First, access to international capital. Big investors prefer to buy a slice of a neutral holding that can list in London or New York and follow familiar company law.

🔸 The second thing is confidentiality. Offshore centres like Barbados or British Virgin Islands often do not disclose ownership structures to general public. Whether you are a geopolitics lover or a simple corruption enjoyer - hop on.

🔸 Finally, access to arbitration. It's convenient to have contracts governed by a system that courts and arbitrators know well. Mauritius is one such hub. It supports modern arbitration and even allows appeals to the UK Privy Council in some cases.

⏩ But can you still cut taxes? Of course, in some ways you can.

🔸 In many places, if you sell a mining company, you must pay tax on the sale. If there is a holding in the middle, the seller can trade that company instead of the local operator - thus, no exit tax.

🔸 Plus you can route part of your group’s work through the offshore holding. For example, accounting - then the local taxable profit goes down and more cash remains within the holding.

As simple as that.

However, in general offshore companies have lost a lot of their old shine. They no longer let poor multinational giants skip national budgets at will. Today they are mainly used for raising money, sharing risk, keeping paperwork clean.

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🇳🇪 Not the Easiest Place to Start

🌐 Turkey’s energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar says Turkey has completed the first phase at its gold field in Niger.

🔸 In October 2024 Ankara and Niamey signed a memorandum to work together in mining. A Turkish ministerial team also visited Niamey in July 2024 to deepen cooperation across energy, mining, and security.

🔸 Turkey maintains its presence in Niger through MTA International Company - a state-run mining company, which has been engaged in exploration in Niger since 2020.

⏩ This would be Turkey’s first overseas gold project and Niger’s only industrial-scale gold operation. Samira Hill, long described as the country’s sole industrial gold mine, was nationalized in August 2025 and is in transition.

Besides investments, it's a chance for Niger to diversify its network of partners beyond Paris - Beijin - Moscow triangle.

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🇿🇼 The Cost of Negligence

In Zimbabwe a group of seven miners went to an underground gold mine for another shift and never returned - because of flooding, or, more honestly, because of negligence.

🔸 The mine is located in the Silabela region where people depend on small pits and narrow tunnels for income.

🔸 For several days it was believed that the lives could be saved. The men got trapped on Wednesday, and rescue efforts continued until the bodies were recovered on Friday.

⏩ There were all possibilities to prevent this

🔸 It is the rainy season and authorities have recently urged miners to minimize operations, as makeshift shafts are particularly vulnerable to flooding.

🔸 Such incidents happen too often in Zimbabwe: the last time miners were blocked underground was in September, and in 2024 there were at least two deadly accidents that received media coverage. Human rights activists claim more than a hundred miners have fallen prey to mine collapses over the recent years.

This should never be the norm. Governments have a responsibility to enforce safety rules, and more importantly, to eradicate poverty, which pushes people into dangerous mines.

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🇳🇬 Once Again - How Much???

🌐 Nigeria has secured $50 billion to build another Africa’s second-largest oil refinery in its Ondo State.

⏩$50 billion is equal to Cameroon's GDP, for comparison.

🔸 The project is led by Backbone Infrastructure Nigeria Limited and Canadian company NEFEX Holdings. However, the question of where the funds themselves will be raised remains unanswered. In its public materials, NEFEX claims it has access to "leading global financial institutions".

⏩ Recently Nigeria has ceased to be an oil well for other countries. However, now it risks becoming a gas station.

🔸 A couple of mega-refineries can lift exports of refined fuel and keep more value inside the country. However, this also calls for a wider plan. People need factories, power projects, farms that process what they grow, and tech jobs that last through oil price cycles.

Let's hope the momentum will be used to move the country forward on the path of industrialization. Nigeria is too big to settle for a UAE-like economy.

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🌐 Weekly News Digest on West & Central Africa’s Mineral Industries [ November 4 – November 10 ]

This was a week of loud inaugurations and unfortunate accidents.

💡Here are the key highlights:

🏦 Mining 2030 - Investor Initiative
- Investors propose to create an International Mineral Agency

🇦🇴 Angola & Botswana
- Botswana and Angola’s mines ministers met to discuss the purchase of De Beers

🇨🇩 DR Congo
- A tailings pond near Lubumbashi burst and sent acidic water into the city

🇨🇲 Cameroon
- Chinese-operated gold site set on fire after it ignored the “stay at home” call

🇬🇳 Guinea
- Guinea launched world’s largest high-grade iron-ore mine

🇲🇱 Mali
- Mali officially inaugurated its second lithium mine (which has been operational since February)

🇳🇪 Niger
- French media accused Niger of selling uranium to Russia
- Turkey has completed the first phase at its gold field in Niger.

🇳🇬 Nigeria
- Nigeria has secured $50 billion to build Africa’s second-largest oil refinery

🇿🇲 Zambia
- Companies redomicile in the US to get investments

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe
- 7 people dead due to a mine flooding

#NewsDigest

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🇬🇭 How Gold Rots Societies
Ordinary Ghanaians take up sticks against crime

🌐 Villages in Ghana started to field their own patrols to guard rivers and forests against poisonous illegal gold mining.

🔸 Ghanaian villages now gather mining oversight squads, who patrol the closest areas on weekly basis in search of illegal miners, looking for milky brown water and fresh clearings.

🔸 When people's police forces catch suspects, they use citizen-arrest powers and hand them to the district police.

⏩ However, from here to lynch law is a short step.

🔸 Communities now pushes for courts devoted exclusively to illegal mining cases, denmanding faster trials for those arrested.

🔸 Local observers assume that such groups operating without the supervision of security forces could commit human rights abuses, including ethnic targeting or stereotyping.

The fault starts with the state that let enforcement fail and let reserves fall to armed groups. Not only illegal mining poisons soil, now it also destroys the fabric of society.

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🇳🇬 Touch Them and You'll Hear a Lot of Noise

🌐 Nigeria’s state oil company NNPC abandoned the idea to sell country's 4 near-dead state-owned refineries. The managers await someone to create joint ventures with.

⏩ Recently NIgeria has been extremely successful in attracting private investment into oil treatment

🔸However, there are still the 4 state-owned refineries - Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Warri plants - that stand as a testament to Abuja's failure, which had been working far below their capacity before 2019 and afterwards stopped.

⏩ Between 2019 and 2023 Nigeria approved $3 billion for repair works. In total the rescue attempts have cost about 18 billion dollars.

🔸 If NNPC sold the refineries now, no investor would pay a price that covers even a small part of those. The market would price the plants as old, rusty, falling apart - as they actually are - and facing strong competition from Dangote refinery. Even if NNPC tried to sell them, it would only provoke a lot of ridicule and anger about the lost investments.

There is no doubt that the NNPC is now hijacked by corruption and is being used by official elites to extract oil rents. However, it seems that as soon as the factories completely collapse, serious conversations will begin about who is to blame.

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💡 Resource Nationalism Index
[ IVORY COAST ]

How much chocolate do you eat on average per day? I hope not 5,500 tonnes - otherwise it would mean you wipe out the entire daily cocoa production of Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa exporter.

However, cocoa is not our department, in contrast to the country’s second-largest export item - gold, which becomes the topic of today's part of our "Resource Nationalism Index" series.

Today Côte d’Ivoire sells abroad $2.1 billion worth of gold, but how is this mineral wealth administered at home?

🔸 "Process It First" – 0/10 – Côte d’Ivoire does not impose legal bans or strict requirements to refine or process minerals domestically before export.

🔸 "Share With the State” – 0/10 – There are no general domestic supply requirements forcing mining companies to sell a portion of mineral output to local industry or the state at controlled prices.

🔸 “We’re in Too!” – 4/10 – By law, the Ivorian government automatically receives a free, non-dilutable 10% equity stake in the capital of any mining company granted an exploitation permit. In addition, the state may negotiate to purchase up to an additional 15% ownership in the project company at market value.

🔸 “The Money's Yours, the People Are Ours" – 3/10 – Côte d’Ivoire’s mining law embeds local content principles, though it stops short of fixed quotas on local employees and subcontractors.

🔸 “Just Pay Up" – 5/10 – 3% to 6% royalty on gross revenue (after deducting transport and refining costs), on a sliding scale indexed to the gold price.

🔸 "You Come – You Build" – 6/10 – Mining companies must pay 0.5% of their annual turnover (revenue) into Local Community Development Fund.

🔸 “We’ll Do It Ourselves” – 5/10 – Côte d’Ivoire maintains a direct presence in the mining sector through state-owned SODEMI (Société d’État pour le Développement Minier), a state mining company established in 1962. The government is courting international partners to set up a domestic gold refinery.

🔸 “Come Here, You Bast*rd!” – 3/10 – Since the end of the civil conflict in 2011, no region of Côte d’Ivoire is held by insurgents or rebel forces – the government maintains sovereignty over all mining territories. However, the challenge comes from illegal artisanal mining, A recent government study found that roughly three times the country’s official gold production is being siphoned off by illegal mining and smuggling

Ivory Coast falls behind all the countries that we observed before - mainly due to the complete absence of direct local processing requirements and the fact that the state does not demand any share of production to be transferred to it, in times when gold prices are extremely high.

#IvoryCoast #ResourceNationalism

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Africa's Hidden Exports
[ #SetTheRecordStraight ]

⏩ In 2022, at least $30 billion in African gold slipped out off the books. This is not a rounding error. Gold smuggling is a full-fledged, second export stream.

🔸 People often think smuggling is tiny next to official exports. However, mirror statistics and country studies tell a different story. When you compare what African states say they shipped with what buyers say they received, the gap is wide and persistent.

⏩ In several countries, the illegal flow rivals or overtakes the legal one in certain years. That single fact explains missing tax money, weaker local services, and why reforms that only target formal traders keep failing.

So how serious is the problem of gold smuggling?

🔸 Ghana: a 229-tonne mismatch over five years, worth about $11.4 billion, traced mainly to Dubai-bound shipments outside the official channel.

🔸 Sudan: studies estimate 50–70% of production is smuggled each year. During the war, research points to 100 kg per day moving to Egypt, adding up to 60+ tonnes since 2023.

🔸 Zimbabwe: investigations and official comments put overall losses around $1-1.5 billion per year, equal to tens of tonnes that bypass the state buyer.

Today governments pay ever more attention to curbing illegal exports, however, until imports in Dubai, Johannesburg, Istanbul and Zürich must name and verify mine-to-market origins, Africa’s real export ledger will keep living outside the books.

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⚠️ Where Can Resource Nationalism Lead?
[ #PolicyReview ]

The answer: to success. For details let's look at the example of Indonesia.

⏩ Indonesia did something many resource countries only talk about: it made mining companies stop shipping the rock and start building plants.

🔸 In the late 2000s Indonesia was a big supplier of raw nickel ore to Asia, mostly to China. There were only a couple of smelters in the country and most income left with the ships.

🔸 By 2024 it was supplying more than half of global primary nickel, exports of processed nickel reached tens o f billions of dollars, and whole industrial parks grew next to the mines.

⏩ This change did not come from a single decree. Indonesia adopted policies that created places to invest, tax holidays, power supply and a clear sign that the government would not reverse the core idea.

So, what exactly did Indonesia do?

🔸 2009 – the key mining law (Law No. 4/2009) appeared. It said minerals had to be processed inside the country and it prepared the ground for export restrictions. It also pushed for more Indonesian participation in mining projects.

🔸 2013 – Indonesia and China agreed to develop the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) in Sulawesi, close to nickel deposits. This gave investors a real place with a port, power, land and one large anchor company (Tsingshan). From that moment investors knew processing could be done right at the source.

🔸 January 2014 – the export ban on unprocessed minerals, including nickel ore, was enforced. Companies that wanted to keep selling had to start building smelters. Processed nickel exports later jumped from about USD 6 billion in 2013 to around USD 30 billion in 2022.

🔸 2010s – 2020s – inside the new industrial parks (IMIP, later Weda Bay) the state added fiscal and non-fiscal support: tax holidays up to 20 years, exemptions on imported equipment, simpler permits, special labour rules.

🔸 2019 and after – the government fixed the next goal: electric vehicles and battery materials, with a presidential regulation in 2019 and follow-up plans. So the story did not stop at smelting, it moved to higher-value uses of nickel.

In about a decade, Indonesia turned a complaint (“we export too much raw ore”) into a system that forces value to stay at home - eventually into an example to follow.

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🇸🇳 Senegal Steps on the Gas

When, around 1785, the British first used natural gas to light houses and streets, nobody imagined how it would shape industry, agriculture and daily life. Today, Senegal is set to learn these benefits in full too.

🌐 Senegal announced plans to build a national gas pipeline network by 2027, aiming to bring its offshore gas to power plants, factories and cities. The state firm Réseau Gazier du Sénégal (RGS) is building about 400 km of lines in five segments, budgeted at roughly $1.15 billion.

⏩ So far, most of Senegal’s new oil and gas has gone abroad.

🔸 The new pipes aim to connect Senegal’s recent offshore finds to the economy. In 2015-2017 it discovered Grand Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) and Yakaar-Teranga deposits, however, without the upcoming pipeline, “in-country” gas movement has been very limited, mostly destined for Senegal's floating powerplant operated by Turkish Karpowership company, which supplies some 20% of the country's electricity.

🔸 With this pipeline built, power stations will be able to switch to domestic gas, and new uses will emerge in fertilizers, ceramics and glass.

Pipes to the people are the real milestone. The goal is not just exports but affordable gas for homes, farms and factories - however, if all the molecules end up with one or two foreign firms - that won't do.

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🇬🇭 Ghana: British Colonialism Recompensed?

At the height of the British rule of Ghana, London extracted about 25 tonnes of gold a year, which afterwards ended up in the Bank of England and helped to back the pound. Meanwhile, stolen cultural heritage helped to fill the British museums.

🌐 The United Kingdom and Switzerland have "returned" to Ghana more than 130 artifacts of the Ashanti Kingdom's heritage, exported during its conquest by British colonial troops at the end of the 19th century.

🔸 The artifacts incude royal regalia made of gold and bronze, drums and gold scales from the time of the Ashanti kingdom.

⏩ However, the UK only condescended to transfer the exhibits to the Ghana Museum for no more than three years on the pretext of legal restrictions in the UK.

🔸 Much less would London be willing to return approximately 620 tonnes of gold that it had took out of Ghana, then the Gold Cost, during the colonial rule.

🔸 Ghana has made a great stride since then - now it would only take some 5-6 years for the country to produce the same amount.

However, even though Ghana now hardly needs British benevolence in terms of economic compensation, the expropriated cultural wealth cannot be digged out of the ground as simply.

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🇳🇬 With ministers like that, who needs colonialists?

🌐 In another unnecessary validation of the famous proverb that a fish rots from the head down, Nigeria has issued an arrest warrant for former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Timipre Sylva. He is suspected of conspiracy and criminal conversion of $14.9 million.

🔸 The funds are linked to a planned 2,000-barrels-per-day modular refinery in Brass, Bayelsa State. In 2020, the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board committed $35 million to the project.

🔸 The former minister himself must have felt at home in this affair - that is, he was born and matured in the very place where the plant was supposed to be located. From 2008 to 2012, he even served as governor of Bayelsa State, which means that his in-state connections will probably be on the list of those scrutinized as a part the alledged conspiracy.

⏩ Sylva's public aid denied the accusations and pointed at political considerations behind the issued warrant.

🔸 The warrant may be linked to the recent rearrangement of Nigeria's military elite amid the context of an alleged coup attempt.

However, what is known for sure is that public funds for refineries vanished with no plant built. The problem is bigger than a single name - Nigeria's recent audit of its oil sector revealed up to $300 billion worth of oil theft. A full reshuffle of Nigeria’s most rent-generating sector is long overdue - and increasingly likely.

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🇿🇼 Pipeline of Legitimacy

🌐 Lobbying the expansion of the sales market for his oil empire, Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote has just pledged up to $1 billion investments in Zimbabwe.

🔸 The planned investments include a 2,200 km petroleum pipeline from Namibia’s Walvis Bay through Botswana into Zimbabwe.

🔸 At the other end of the projected pipeline in Namibia's Walvis Bay Dangote’s group aims to construct a 1.6 million-barrel fuel storage facility, that will serve as an entry point for fuel from Africa’s largest oil refinery, also owned and run by Dangote.

⏩ At the same moment Zimbabwe’s ruling party moves to keep incumbent president Mnangagwa in office until 2030.

🔸 Amidst popular discontent over the suggested extension of the presidential mandate, Dangote did not skimp on compliments to the president, saying:

There’s been quite a lot of change between when we came and now. The government is solid, when you look at what his excellency has done in turning the economy around.

The bargain here is clear. However, while profit remain Dangote’s main objective, he also tends to build things that also work for people, which is a rare record among the very rich.

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