(Bloomberg) -- Four Barrick Gold Corp. employees have been arrested by Mali’s military-controlled government as a dispute over its local mining operations escalates.
The employees of Barrick’s Loulo-Gounkoto mining complex have been charged and detained pending a trial, the Canadian mining company said in a Tuesday statement. Barrick refutes the charges and said it will continue to engage with the Malian government to find an amicable settlement that would ensure the long-term sustainability of the operations.
Mali’s military government has threatened to take back the Loulo mine concession when the current permit expires in 2026, amid an escalating dispute over how to divide the economic benefits from operations in the country.
The detention follows a number of arrests in recent weeks targeting fellow gold company Resolute Mining by the military government, which staged a coup d’état in 2020. Three Resolute employees, including Chief Executive Officer Terry Holohan, were arrested earlier this month. They were released last week after the company agreed to pay $160 million to resolve a tax dispute.
Barrick and other international miners have been under growing pressure since the military seized power, with Mali seeking to boost revenue from its mineral resources through a mining code adopted last year. Gold is a key pillar of the economy of the nation, which is grappling to curb attacks by militants linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State that has destabilized the West African nation during a decade-long insurgency.
--With assistance from Moses Mozart Dzawu.
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