As per our sources reported on 23rd March 2021, an investigation was opened in Paris after a complaint about corruption in the exploitation of bauxite in Guinea comprising President Alpha Condé, several of his relatives and mining companies.
This preliminary investigation, opened by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) in September, follows the complaint about "corruption, influence peddling and corruption laundering", filed in August by the Collective for the transition in Guinea (CTG).
Ibrahim Sorel Keita, CTG, spokesperson, said: "We have very strong suspicions of corruption between the ruling clan and the miners, including the Responsible Mining Alliance (AMR) and the Boké Mining Company (SMB).”
The words of CTG bring together the opponents of Alpha Condé, President since 2010 and re-elected in October’20 for a controversial third term.
Romain Girbal and Thibault Launay two young entrepreneurs, founded AMR in 2015, obtained a license to mine bauxite, which was permitted by President Condé’s government on 7th June 2017. However, a week later, AMR sold this deposit to SMB, one of the country's main exporters, owned by a Franco-Sino consortium.
The AMR assured, while the announcement of the complaint that they have in fact concluded a farm-out contract, which is considered as a common practice in the international mining sector, perfectly in accordance with the Guinean Mining Code. "We have never done anything illegal in France or in Guinea", as stated by AMR, which counts on its board of directors in particular the former boss of Areva Anne Lauvergeon and the shipowner Edouard Louis- Dreyfus.
"The origin of the allegations is a political fight which is foreign to us", adds the AMR, denouncing "incomprehensible" attacks and specifying to ignore everything of the investigation.
“The instrumentalization of justice both in France and in Guinea is in the context of ‘a political struggle’. “I have nothing to say, not having had access to this complaint which comes from a political organization and is openly part of an electoral calendar", underlined Me François Zimeray, a lawyer for the leader of the SMB Fadi Wazni.
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