Long considered the preserve of the rural world, the gold panning sector is attracting more and more new players who also aspire to a better future, including civil servants. Discreetly, they invest in it in the hope of making ends meet during difficult months or even shine like the yellow metal.

“If you do…I will curse you, you will become a civil servant!” The populations and in particular the public officials living in the localities where gold panning is in full swing, know very well this joke in bad taste of certain gold panners, newly rich, often throwing barbs at their comrades, to whom they wish a life of “miserable”, like that which civil servants would lead.

Certainly outraged by these attitudes and influenced by the “bling-bling” life of certain gold prospectors, public officials succumbed to temptation. This is the case in the South-West region.

According to the National Survey on the Gold Panning Sector (ENSO), carried out in 2017 by the National Institute of Statistics and Demography (INSD), gold panning produced in 2016 in the locality, 4.7 tonnes gold estimated at more than 118 billion CFA francs, compared to 9.5 tonnes nationally, generating 232.2 billion CFA francs.

IO, a hairdresser in Gaoua, has been a gold prospector for more than ten years. Met on the night of December 21 to 22, 2022 in his hairdressing salon, he admits to having collaborated with the official GA (not his real name) to exploit the gold of Djikando, located approximately 10km from the city.

“Everyone invested 150,000 CFA francs and we got 7 million CFA francs. Each received 3.5 million CFA francs, but their colleague was transferred to another region for service reasons, our interlocutor tells us.

He claims that gold panning allowed him to acquire rock-grinding machines, a gold detector and an explosives compressor, a 5-hectare cashew nut field, a food supply and a plot of land.

DZ, an agent of the Defense and Security Forces (FDS), native of the region, agreed to share his experience.

He notes that he took out a bank loan in 2016 to buy a metal detection device for more than one million CFA francs for his brother, working on another mining site in the Noumbiel province.

Two years later, the benefits allowed them to build a modern building in the family compound, strengthen their work equipment and obtain rolling machines.

Another place, another reality. A group of civil servants made up of nurses and teachers initiated a mining project in 2021. They identified a young gold prospector who would be responsible for carrying out the project, which ultimately did not come to fruition.

One of them informed us that the sum of 50,000 CFA francs that each member had to pay and which would be used to supply the field staff with water, food and digging equipment, was not paid by all.

“When the hole started to produce gold, the gain would be shared equitably,” explains our interlocutor.

The Vice-President of the National Union of Mining Artisans of the South-West region and representative of the mining artisans of the Djikando site, Moussa Sawadogo, met on Friday December 23, 2022 at his home in Gaoua, confided that “there is traders who started their business through gold panning and also civil servants.” He points out that, generally, civil servants pay for the metal detector devices which they entrust to craftsmen on mining sites.

“They put a system in place where everyone wins. It’s a business,” he says, while specifying that it is the teachers and the men in charge who like to invest in this sector.

“I have known civil servants who got into the business, I lost track of them because they manage to get by,” continues Mr. Sawadogo.

A sector that provides jobs

Small-scale mining employs a large number of young people, thus helping to reduce the unemployment rate.

“There are intellectuals who have the BAC, the License among us. Today, there is no such person, whatever their social rank, who is not in gold panning. Whether it is civil servants, traders or financial partners,” adds the president of the National Union of Mining Artisans of Burkina (UNAMB), Masmoudou Sawadogo.

According to him, many traders invest in artisanal mining sites in the Poni province and most civil servants are financial partners.

“We have traders and civil servants who are in Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso who work with friends on the site,” he adds.

According to him, gold miners have experience in the field, but do not have the guarantee like civil servants to have a bank loan. Which explains the partnerships they form.

“For the Gaoua area, they are estimated at around 700,000 people on nearly 82 sites. The development of the region is due to gold panning because the sons no longer go to Ivory Coast. Before in Gaoua from 9 p.m., there were highway robbers, but today, we can travel at any time without fear, because they have converted to gold panning,” the president proudly recounts. of UNAMB.

Incompatible status?

The former Director General of the National Agency for the Supervision of Artisanal and Semi-Mechanized Mining (ANEEMAS), Jacob Ouédraogo, confirmed to us according to information that civil servants finance gold panning on the national territory. However, he refrained from naming names.

As a reminder, ANEEMAS is a public establishment of the State which regulates the gold panning sector under the technical supervision of the Ministry in charge of Mines. It was created in 2015 upon the liquidation of the Comptoir Burkinabè des Matériaux Precious (CBMP) which was responsible for the supervision, but also the buyout of artisanal gold production.

It is established in five regions including an office in the Center-West, Boucle du Mouhoun, Hauts-Bassins, Cascades and four in the South-West which is explained by the fact that the region produces more than 50% gold. in artisanal mining in Burkina Faso.

“We have noted that it is necessary to set up offices close to the stakeholders to minimize the negative impact of chemicals and explosives used by gold miners. We have a particular interest in the South-West because it is home to many gold sites which produce large quantities of gold,” explains the former director general of ANEEMAS, Jacob Ouédraogo.

Regarding the case of civil servants, the former DG of the civil service, Marcel Ouédraogo, insists that it is “strictly prohibited for public officials to carry out any other professional activity outside of the exceptions provided for by law such as art, artistic production, music, agriculture, breeding and intellectual services, unless he takes time off or takes advantage of weekends to exercise it.

“There are obligations to personally carry out the work entrusted to you as a public servant, punctuality and attendance. When there is a violation of these obligations, the texts provide for sanctions,” concludes the former DG of the civil service.

Source: Burkina Information Agency