By Omar Bah
Abubakary Jawara, CEO of GACH Global Mining Company, has informed The Standard that his company has paid over D300 million in royalties to The Gambia government.
GACH commenced mining in The Gambia in 2018, focusing on extracting black sand from various villages including Sanyang and Tujereng. The company has faced scrutiny for starting its activities without obtaining local consent from the affected communities. It has since expended millions on royalties and other payments, such as surface rental fees and institutional support. GACH has also committed to increasing community contributions.
Reacting to criticisms over his company’s mining activities in a Standard exclusive, Jawara said he has been a victim of circumstances because sand mining didn’t start with his company.
“Mining of black sand started in 1926. When former president Jawara came, the British were mining black sand, and then Yahya Jammeh came, and that was the time those areas were destroyed. GACH Global’s mining is the most civilised mining in the world. No chemical. No pollution. We do simple mining. And when we finish, we rehabilitate [the area].”
He added: “If you recall, the Janneh Commission went to these mining sites and showed Gambians how these places were damaged. GACH didn’t cause that damage there. I am even trying to rehabilitate some of these places. Go to Sanyang and Brufut and see. We have planted a lot of trees to restore the areas. Also, we are the first company that holds a mining licence in this country, and we assumed our social corporate responsibility.”
Jawara added that GACH is working closely with the communities they operate in, and they deliver as agreed.
“We have since paid more than D300 million in royalties to the government. No company has paid that in the history of this country, and every year we pay US$100,000 to the Geology Department for overseas training of their staff. We build markets, fence gardens, and every six months we give the communities D3 million. Go to Senegal, Sierra Leone and other countries and ask how much mining companies are paying in royalties. It is less than what we are paying, and that is because we understand The Gambia doesn’t have other natural resources,” he stated.
He added that royalty on one tonne in Senegal is less than US$11 and in some countries it is as low as US$9, but that GACH is paying US$45 per tonne.
“We want to get things right, but despite that, there is too much hatred against us,” he added.
Salagi forest
Responding to criticisms over the land allocated to him in Salagi for basalt storage, Jawara explained: “We didn’t grab the land in Salagi. When we decided to start bringing basalt from Cape Verde…We applied to the government to give us land for storage. They initially identified some places for us in Banjul, but those places were occupied, so they decided to relocate us to Salagi. It is not like we went there to grab the land. It was allocated to us and it is free space; we didn’t cut a single tree there.” He argued that the company went through all the necessary processes.
For more on this, read the Special Bantaba interview on Pages 4 and 5.
