I learned some time ago that Burkina Faso granted a gold mining permit to a Russian company. Also recently, an Italian company claimed to have found a large quantity of oil off our coasts. In Mali, we were told that the Russian company Wagner had obtained as payment for its activities in the country, the exploitation of three gold mines. In the time of Laurent Gbagbo, we had learned that the architect Pierre Fakhoury had obtained a permit to exploit an oil block off our coasts. In Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo, businessmen from Western countries are accused of having obtained mines at low prices, through corruption, and in some places there are trials. Everywhere in Africa, companies from outside our continent come to exploit our mineral resources.
The question I have always asked myself is this: what prevents us Africans from exploiting our own mineral resources? Why are we forced to call on foreign companies who always take the largest share of the revenues from these resources, leaving us only the minimum portion and the nuisances related to their exploitation. Thus in Niger, the populations living in the vicinity of Arlit, where uranium is mined, are they exposed to the radioactivity emitted by the uranium residues that no one has bothered to bury properly in the floor. In Nigeria, land and waterways are polluted by oil exploitation. We have always been there, complaining about seeing our mining and oil resources plundered by Westerners and, for some time now, by the Chinese as well. And some “pan-Africans” have made it a subject of war against a well-targeted European country, accused of plundering all our resources, thus creating misery in our countries.
And yet, in very ancient times, Kankou Moussa went to Mecca with such a quantity of gold that the price of this metal collapsed on the Cairo market. Who had extracted this gold from the Malian subsoil? The Malians of the time themselves. When the English landed in present-day Ghana, they baptized it "Gold Coast", the gold coast, as there was so much gold in this country. Who exploited the mines from which this gold came out? They were the local people. So why today, with all the modern technology at our disposal, are we forced to wait for Western or Chinese firms to come and exploit our mines? In Ivory Coast, we also have a lot of gold. What is not exploited by foreign companies is done by miners with archaic methods that destroy the entire environment in which they operate. For decades, the Tortiya diamond has been mined by semi-clandestine miners, using methods as archaic as those of gold panners. I repeat my question: what prevents us, we Ivorians, from exploiting our gold and our diamond with modern means? The same goes for our manganese, our oil and all the other minerals that have been found in our subsoil. We will certainly be told that we do not have the technology to exploit these mines. Is it so complicated to create a mining company, to acquire the machines and technicians needed to run them? If a simple individual like Mr. Pierre Fakhoury were ready to give himself the means to exploit an oil field, that means that other Ivorian women and businessmen, and even the State could do it too. I understand that an Ivorian entrepreneur is currently operating a manganese mine near Daoukro. This means that it is not impossible for an Ivorian to create a mining company. Where are the other Ivorian businessmen and women capable of exploiting our mines? So are our roads and bridges. For sixty years, we have not yet trained enough engineers and technicians capable of making good roads for us and building solid bridges without needing to bring in French or Chinese?
Or would there be an unwritten international law that would prohibit African states from exploiting their mineral resources themselves? If not, then shut up and let those who know what our mineral wealth is worth exploit it. Remember that South Africa exploits its own mineral resources and has created companies that will exploit those of other African countries that are unable to do so themselves.
By Venance Konan
*This article has been translated from French into English by Marcus Boni Teiga
