The head of Guinea’s ruling junta, Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, has warned foreign mining companies to build processing factories locally and to share revenues with the country equally.
Doumbouya has given the companies until the end of May to submit proposals and a timetable for the construction of bauxite refineries, according to a video posted on the presidency’s Facebook page. With an estimated 7.4 billion tons, Guinea has the world’s largest reserves of bauxite, a mineral used in the manufacture of aluminium, essential for the automobile and food industries. It is also the second largest producer. China imports about half of its bauxite needs from Guinea.
However, the benefits of the mining of bauxite or other abundant natural resources such as iron, gold and diamond, remain notoriously uneven. Experts cite insufficient investment in the development of the local economy, a lack of essential infrastructure such as roads, endemic corruption and loopholes in existing laws.
Despite its natural wealth, Guinea remains one of the world’s poorest countries.
“Despite the mining boom in the bauxite sector, we have to admit that the expected revenues are below expectations, we can no longer continue this fool’s game which perpetuates a great inequality in our relations,” Doumbouya told the industrialists.
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