Mali: arrest of four executives from Canadian firm Barrick Gold

Four executives from the Barrick Gold Corporation have been detained in Mali, the Canadian mining company has confirmed, adding that all these employees of its Loulo-Gounkoto mining complex had been charged and detained pending trial.
The arrests come as the Sahel country’s military regime intensifies efforts to impose additional taxes on foreign mining companies by detaining their workers. While Barrick refutes the charges, though without specifying what they were, it said it would continue to engage with the Malian government to find an amicable dispute settlement that would ensure the long-term sustainability of the complex. Discussions between Barrick and Mali’s authorities on implementing new regulations at the Loulo-Gounkoto gold mine have been ongoing for months. The Malian government is reportedly seeking around $500 million in unpaid taxes from Barrick as the government aims to increase revenue from the mining sector.
These same Barrick Gold employees had been briefly detained in September. Barrick’s president and chief executive Mark Bristow said that for the past two months the company had been actively seeking to finalize a deal that would guide Barrick’s partnership with the government in future, including the state’s share of the economic benefits generated by the complex and the legal framework under which this would be managed. Only last week, Resolute Mining’s CEO Terry Holohan and two other employees were released from detention in Mali days after the Australian gold mining company agreed to pay about $160 million to resolve a tax dispute with the government.