BC Iron this week signed a new mining contract to lower costs but its margins remain wafer thin.
"The first thing to fight against corruption is transparency," he said, adding that his country was now publishing all mining contracts as part of a new mining code.
To top it all, the government is conducting a much-needed but opaque and long-winded review of all mining contracts signed during the civil war, adding to foreign investors' anxiety.None of this seems to deter China's state-owned firms, however.
Congo said in April that it was reviewing all mining contracts.
For years, officials have paid lip service to the need for transparency and accountability, and bemoaned the fact that millions in technical assistance can be instantly undermined by a backdoor handshake or the flick of a pen on an ill-gotten oil or mining contract.
Now, you don't need to know anything about graft in China, much less world leaders, or Wen Jiabao, to know that $10,000 not only wouldn't get the job done, it'd be viewed as an insult and an automatic disqualification from this any other mining contract.
Founder faces removal Andrew Forrest, the founder of Fortescue Metals, misled investors by failing to reveal that his company did not agree on price in a mining venture contract, a lawyer representing the securities regulator said, Bloomberg News reported Friday.
This paper studies the design of a mining concession contract as a multi-period adverse selection problem where production is the depletion of a non renewable resource.
Opponents complain, for instance, that while making the deal with Eldorado, the government failed to make sure that Greece received a percentage of the earnings, a common practice in mining contracts.
One initiative is a push to make mining contracts available on the government's Web site to spur public debate, he said.
