‘How foreign operators exploit weak protections in Africa’s extractive sectors’ 26 January 2021

Former US president Donald Trump’s last minute controversial removal of sanctions against an Israeli businessman named in corruption scandals in DR Congo’s mining industry and the jailing of another international commodity broker for bribery in a Guinea iron ore scandal this month shows just how vulnerable Africa’s lucrative resources sector has long been to international operators. For too long Africa’s mineral wealth has failed to uplift the majority of ordinary citizens out of poverty. Resource-rich countries including Zimbabwe (gold, platinum, diamonds) , Sierra Leone (diamonds), DRC (copper, cobalt, gold, diamonds), Guinea (iron ore, bauxite) and others still trailing on various global poverty and human development indices.

…These transgressions fueled concerns by transparency campaigners that once again Africa’s mineral wealth is being used to enrich international players at the expense of development for ordinary Africans on the continent. The Congolese state has lost around $1.4 billion through Dan Gertler’s “suspect deals and outsized influence” in the country’s mining sector through buying mining assets at discounted prices before re-selling them, says Margot Mollat du Jourdin, a campaigner at Global Witness,

…Steinmetz, was convicted for paying $8.5 million to bribe the wife of the late former Guinean president Lansana Conte to land the Simandou mines claims previously owned by Rio Tinto and was sentenced to five years in jail. Steinmetz denies the allegations and intends to appeal his sentencing. The court in Geneva, where he lived at the time the bribery events occurred, found that he later sold the claims to Brazilian resources group, Vale for $2.5 billion.