A tale of uranium smugg
http://www.cityam.com/index.php?news=8446


A tale of uranium smuggling claims and squalid African prison cells

But this isn't a Graham Greene novel, it's real life. Alan Hopkins, boss of miner Carnegie talks to Victoria Bates


THE managing director of mining firm Carnegie Minerals, Alan Hopkins, has had a challenging week. However, his worries have been nothing compared to the ordeal his manager in the Gambia, Charlie Northfield, has endured. 
Northfield was arrested on 15 February and only released from a squalid prison on Friday afternoon after being bailed for $450,000 (£225,000). The 47-year-old father of three from Plymouth had spent a week in shocking conditions, sharing a cell with seven inmates but without power or hope of getting in telephone contact with his family. 
Northfield, his Australia-based employer Carnegie and partner firm Astron are accused of illegal mining and of smuggling material, including uranium, out of the country. Hopkins says: “All we can say from our side is that the allegations are completely unfounded — it’s all an incredible misunderstanding. “We were just desperate to get our guy out. Charlie was in a really vulnerable position. He’s in mobile contact with us now and is just glad to be out. It wasn’t something he’d wish on anyone.” 

IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL
The saga began a month ago, when the Gambian government told Carnegie to cease operations and Carnegie withdrew its personnel from the country. Then two of the Gambia’s top officials visited Britain on 4 February and the company was assured that the Gambia wanted operations to be restarted. It was told the safety of its employees was not at risk. 
Northfield returned to start planning the restarting of operations. He was arrested shortly afterwards. Given the circumstances, it’s hard to ignore the possible implications for foreign investment in the Gambia. After the “groundnut incident” of 1999 — when the Gambian government was forced to pay Swiss company Alimenta $11.4m (£6m) after seizing the firm’s processing plants as a result of allegations that it had been involved in money laundering — firms are reluctant to move operations there and Carnegie’s recent problems won’t exactly boost the country’s reputation.

NEW RESERVES
“It’s hard to speculate on the longer-term implications for the Gambia, but if you have an agreement with a government then both sides have to actually follow that agreement. If you don’t do that, there’s no firm base to operate on,” says Hopkins. 
Financially speaking, the loss of Carnegie’s Gambian project won’t have a great impact on the company, as the joint venture was funded primarily by Australia-listed Astron. However, says Hopkins, the fiasco will be a setback for the development of the regional mining project he has planned for the African west coast. company has been drilling and has found new reserves and Hopkins wants eventually to turn the project into something much bigger.
“Our project in the Gambia was a stepping- stone,” he says. “There were deposits there which had been known about for 50 years but they were small and not such good quality. We’d been in the country for a few years when we looked across and realised that what’s in the Gambia should also be over the border in Senegal. So, we entered into an agreement with the government and the project’s still going strong. Senegal is a much bigger country, so our targets are potentially on a much larger scale.”
Hopkins, who’s been in the mining industry for almost 30 years, is confident that the resources sector will prove resilient, despite current turmoil.

 POSITIVE AMBASSADORS
“We’re certainly seeing a lot of demand from buyers in the big developing countries like India and China,” he says. “In relation to the stock markets, they’ve obviously fallen everywhere.” 
Carnegie is, as Hopkins puts it, a “production story”. While many of its competitors are simply exploring, the company has moved into production but needs a higher profile. “The problem is, we’re below the radar,” he says. “Our target is now to step up onto a larger scale in various countries. London’s a big market and you’ve got to be a certain size to get a full evaluation of where you are.” 
He’s hoping that the company will be driven forward by its new undertakings, including the project in Senegal and another venture which Carnegie has been working on for five months but whose location is being kept under wraps. “We’re not far away on it,” he says. “We can’t say yet where it is.” 
Short-term, Hopkins’s top priority is throwing out the “ludicrous” Gambian charges against the company and Charlie Northfield, but Carnegie’s ordeal there does not seem to have put him off expanding into other countries. “Somebody asked me this morning whether I regretted going to the Gambia,” he says.
“But it’s funny — although we obviously have a lot of concerns about what’s happened, we achieved a lot there. We created about 140 local jobs and fully trained up our workers. They didn’t even have shoes, and we gave them protective work gear. We gave them inoculations for their health. 
“And if the local primary school needed a building, we’d send our men up for the day and work on it for them for nothing. We even sponsored the local footie team. We really were positive ambassadors, and I’m proud of that.” 

By Victoria Bates 


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