Loading ...Banro dangling Congo gold mine to best bidder
Canada’s Banro Corporation will put its Namoya gold mine in eastern Congo up for sale, at significant discount, after repeated attacks from armed rebels forced it to halt operations once again in September.
The Toronto-based miner, present in eastern DRC since the 1990s, said the decision to offload Namoya was based on the lack of government support to keep its staff and assets safe.
Banro had a challenging run that nearly ended in bankruptcy three years ago. The government had confiscated its licenses during a civil war that killed five million people, returning them in 2002 as the conflict drew to a close.
Banro sold last month its other mine in Congo — Twangiza — for just $1 because the asset’s liabilities exceeded projected revenue.
In the following years, the company built its Twangiza and Namoya mines. The latter has been since then the target of multiple attacks, including the kidnapping of employees, which led the cash-strapped company to halt operations in 2017.