World number two gold miner AngloGold Ashanti on Tuesday said that following a review of its exploration activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), it believed that its presence improved the country’s economic prospects and reinforced the country’s peace process.
A senior executive team of the AngloGold Ashanti management conducted a review of the company’s exploration activities in the DRC.
The review included a visit to the DRC in early June, with the focus of the review aimed at determining whether this activity could be conducted with integrity and in compliance with the company’s values.
The team held a series of meetings in the national capital Kinshasa, the capital of the Ituri district, Bunia, and at AngloGold Ashanti’s exploration camp in Mongbwalu.
In these three places the team met with representatives of DRC government, the state mining agency, Okimo, the United Nations peace keeping force, Monuc, and representatives of the Catholic church.
Monuc has now established a substantial presence in Mongbwalu, AngloGold Ashanti said.
“We have been assured by Monuc that significant progress with the disarming of militia members has occurred and Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI) militia have withdrawn from the town,” the group added.
Earlier in June, New York-headquartered Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report uncovering some of the alleged activities of AngloGold Ashanti in the DRC.
AngloGold Ashanti chief executive Bobby Godsell said at a media conference that the group had “messed up” when its employees in a northeastern part of the DRC paid a total of about $9Â 000 in bribes to the FNI.
The company acknowledged the payment by the group’s employees to the militia grouping, the FNI, of a bribe of $8,000 in January this year and sums totalling about $1Â 000 last year.
In April last year, South Africa’s AngloGold and Ghana’s Ashanti Goldfields merged to form AngloGold Ashanti.
The gold concession in the DRC formed part of Ashanti’s portfolio in 1996, when the company bought a stake in a joint venture operation between Mining Development International and Okimo called KiloMoto International Mining.
The purchase gave Ashanti part of the rights to an area called Concession 40, which included 2Â 000 square kilometres around the town of Mongbwalu in the province of Ituri.
Local warlords and international companies, like AngloGold Ashanti, were among those benefiting from access to gold-rich areas, while local people suffer from ethnic slaughter, torture and rape, the HRW report alleged.
AngloGold Ashanti denied allegations contained in the report that AngloGold Ashanti, in its activities in the Ituri region of the DRC, gave tacit support to militia groups.
As a result of the review conducted in June, AngloGold Ashanti said it had identified a number of areas for management action.
These actions included a survey of key issues including operational security, environmental considerations, community health, artisanal mining and social development.
The group also said it was intensifying its engagement with key community and government stakeholders as well as Monuc in Kinshasa, Bunia and Mongbwalu.
AngloGold Ashanti also undertook to “strictly monitor” all contact with outside organisations, maintaining a register of the nature and content of these contacts, and ensure that they are consistent with the group’s values and credible international guidelines for operating in conflict zones.
The group was also discussing with DRC state mining agency Okimo, how to deal with the occupation, without the company’s consent, of houses within AngloGold Ashanti’s concession at Mongbwalu.
“Given the volatility of events in the DRC we will regularly review our activities, and should it become impossible to operate safely and with integrity we will withdraw from the region, as we have done previously,” AngloGold Ashanti said.
“We remain ready to engage with all interested stakeholders, including government, the United Nations and non-governmental organizations [NGOs] to ensure that our actions are consistent with our values and the intentions set out in this statement,” the group added.-I-Net Bridge