Who actually advantages from the gold increase? | EUROtoday
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QSomewhere between the areas of Bélier and Goh-Djiboua, on the finish of a dusty monitor, financial exercise is in full swing. Over the previous ten years, the villages of yesteryear have reworked into actual small cities, pushed by gold fever. The story is in actual fact one in all rediscovery, as a result of gold panning has all the time existed as a conventional exercise practiced by sure peoples of West Africa. “The Burkinabè who have been living here for a long time have always exploited a little in secret. But the political crisis of 2010 decentralized gold panning, which was rather located in the north of Ivory Coast,” explains Christian*, an everyday at casual mines. For centuries, the data linked to gold extraction has been perpetuated particularly by the Mossi, a folks from the north who’re in the present day omnipresent on clandestine websites.
In a report revealed in 2022, the National Human Rights Council of Côte d’Ivoire (CNDH) counted not less than 241 clandestine websites for a inhabitants estimated at 23,000 gold miners. Despite a rigorous methodology, these figures are actually nicely beneath actuality. Because seen from the sphere, a number of extraction strategies coexist. “The exploitation of alluvial deposits consists of extracting gold-bearing sediments from the bottom of watercourses using dredges, while that of eluvial deposits targets gold-bearing accumulations resulting from the alteration of source rocks in ancient dry river beds”, explains Hugo Dory-Cros, doctoral student in economic anthropology at Ehess, whose work focuses on the exploitation of gold in the Côte of ivory. But the gold miners’ flagship method remains the so-called lode method, where holes sometimes exceeding a hundred meters are dug by hand to extract the gold trapped in quartz.
When the State enters into struggle
Day and night, these cramped wells called hyraxes are the subject of a strange ballet in which men take turns diving into the earth’s depths. Despite the danger of the galleries collapsing, pickaxe blows were relentlessly dealt to the walls. Often, it’s the explosive that has the last word. Asphyxiation lurks, the slightest outbreak of fire could prove fatal. Yet the bags continue to rise to the surface, each containing the promise of quick enrichment. Before sharing the profits between the head of the hyrax (the investor) and each of his miners, the rubble must first be crushed, passed on inclined belts then immersed in a basin of water in which mercury plays the role of yellow metal fixer. “It’s not a job in which a man should stay, it’s only to support himself,” explains Yacoub*, one of many diggers met on the positioning and who goals of reaching Europe.
Faced with organized networks, the Ivorian State intends to put an end to all illegal activities. “In intervention we break, we seize, we unshoe. Our objective is set at two operations per week,” promises a brigade commander dispatched near the sites. Since 2022, the prerogatives of law enforcement have been broadened in the fight against gold panning, such as the right to confiscate equipment in the absence of conviction of its users. In practice, this zero tolerance policy is hampered by ordinary corruption. On site, the gendarmes, also called “squadrons”, often know the illegal workers against whom they are supposed to fight; some of them turning out to be brothers or cousins. On a daily basis, the action seems to alternate between use of force and racketeering. “Every day we are afraid, sometimes they hit people, break the machines while the rest of the time they make arrangements with us,” testifies a digger.
At the level of the villages affected by the phenomenon, the feelings are more mixed. If we regret the arrival, in the wake of gold, of Nigerian prostitution networks, drugs and the increase in theft; the economic dynamism associated with it often compensates for these social problems in the eyes of the population. And although local political balances are also somewhat upset, traditional leaders agree with new economic players so that the community benefits from this newly earned money, which circulates from hand to hand every day. Despite the dangerous nature of the gold trade, others also recognize a sadly social function in gold panning. “The big positive point is that in the absence of work, it keeps our young people busy,” says Christian*. Coming out of the hyraxes, women – tolerated on the site – benefit free of charge from the least promising rock fragments. The few grams they can get from it constitute their income.
Towards a formalization of the sector?
Behind these hundreds of illegal operations lies a colossal loss of income for the Ivorian state. In its report entitled “On the Trail of African Gold” published in 2024, the independent organization SwissAid estimated that undeclared gold production on the continent would be almost equivalent to legal production. Concerning Côte d’Ivoire, the trend seems to be the same. In this regard, the organization reports comments made in 2023 after request from the Ministry of Mines: “It cannot be ruled out that production from artisanal and small-scale mining could approach or even exceed 40 tonnes. » As a reminder, declared production should reach 55 tonnes in 2024.
To counter the phenomenon, the Ivorian authorities are trying to formalize the exploitation of gold through artisanal and semi-industrial permits. “In recent years, we have seen an acceleration in the issuance of permits but also in repression,” confirms Muriel Champy, anthropologist assigned to the Research Institute for Development (IRD) in Ivory Coast. These authorizations requested by better structured investors make it possible to explore areas of 25 to 100 hectares completely legally. “When the papers are there, there is no longer a problem,” corroborates the brigade commander already cited. The procedure for obtaining a permit, which generally takes several years, does not guarantee better operating conditions. “On the artisanal and semi-industrial sites that I was able to visit, the working conditions and the techniques used are largely the same as in the underground. Permits do not really offer any improvement in terms of the environment or health,” continues the anthropologist.
In one of these semi-industrial mines supposed to guarantee greater safety for workers, only a few dams were concreted to limit the risk of collapse. Everything actually depends on the profitability of the hole as well as the goodwill of each investor. Especially since miners lose out: “In the context of semi-industrial and artisanal permits, the gram of gold generally represents a third or half of the price set on the clandestine market,” notes Hugo Dory-Cros. The gold cyanidation process also continues to be carried out outdoors in ponds hidden in the bush a few kilometers from the extraction sites. In this context, formalization appears more as a mechanism for territorial control for the authorities and a means of ensuring peace of mind for gold miners.
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Answer
Could the answer due to this fact lie in industrial mining initiatives? In the Goh-Djiboua area, the city of Hiré is surrounded by three giant websites of the Canadian firm Allied Gold. On web site, every thing appears marked out and managed. Security measures are meant to be strict for the corporate’s 2,000 workers. These are all arguments in favor of the institution of such behemoths. The present mining code – which ought to quickly be topic to an overhaul – additionally offers for an obligation for mining firms to allocate 0.5% of their turnover to an area improvement fund managed by the prefectural authority. Despite investments in a number of street and academic infrastructures, the environment of Hiré stay profoundly altered by twenty years of extractivism throughout which a number of villages had been displaced. “The mine is moving towards us, maybe one day they will end up moving the town,” quips a resident. Because within the conquest of gold, every thing is a matter of concession.
*First names have been modified to ensure the anonymity of the testimonies.
https://www.lepoint.fr/afrique/cote-d-ivoire-a-qui-profite-vraiment-le-boom-de-l-or-25-12-2024-2578681_3826.php