News

October 01, 2008

Is An Inscrutable Chinaman Playing High Stakes Poker With AXMIN And The Government Of The Central African Republic?

By Charles Wyatt

Frustrating is not a word strong enough to express feelings at Canadian-listed AXMIN after an announcement was issued on local radio in the Central African Republic (CAR) that a decree had been issued which appeared to amend Article 2 of the company’s Bambari 1 and 2 permits. This came as a real shock as Jon Forster, while chief executive, had lauded relations between the company and the government of this under-explored country. And the shock in the market was doubled as the heading on the resulting AXMIN announcement to the stock exchange was a sparse “AXMIN learns of an amending decree from the Government of CAR.” Investors immediately assumed the Passendro gold project had run into a problem. This would have been really bad news as a positive bankable feasibility study was announced earlier this year. The study as well as the Draft Environmental and Social Impact Assessment were submitted to the Minister of Mines in May as part of the permitting process.

Fortunately things were not as they first seemed, as so often happens in Africa. The amending decree has no impact on Passendro where talks are continuing with the Minister of Mines over issuing a mining licence. The Bambari 1 and 2 permits were last renewed in June 2007 and are valid to June 2010. In law no changes should have been made until then, but the amending decree does remove the right of AXMIN to explore for silver, copper, nickel, lead, zinc and iron, and leaves it just with gold. So...