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General Mahamat Idriss Déby, president of the Transitional Military Council of Chad (PCMT), said in an interview with public television channel Télé Tchad broadcast on June 9 that 57 billion CFA francs (about $91 million) worth of gold leaves Chad for Libya every week, according to Bloomberg.
“It’s getting too big and it has to stop”He added that the value of gold smuggled out of the country dwarfs Chad’s official gold exports, which were about $200 million in 2020, according to World Bank data.
The transitional head of the landlocked Central African nation, General Mohamed Idriss Deby, hopes to profit from gold mined in the far north, which is largely controlled by armed militias. Chad is currently facing a food security crisis and struggling to reach a deal with external creditors including commodities trading giant Glencore to restructure $2.8 billion in foreign debt.
Gold mining in the border areas of Chad, Libya and Niger has long posed security problems for the management of the capital, N’Djamena.
“We will set up mining, tax and customs services. Foreigners who want to mine here will need to get a license.”PCMT Mahamat Idriss Déby declared. “The state will have its share, and the province will be entitled to 5% of its natural resource revenues”.
He denied that the evacuation of the miners by security forces was an attempt by authorities to hand over the mines to foreign actors. A recent report by RHIPTO, a Norwegian global analysis center, said previous attempts to industrialize Chad’s gold reserves had failed due to insecurity in the remote area and a lack of infrastructure.
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