Loading ...Burkina Faso’s military rulers are seeking to process more of its gold locally to ensure control over the country’s main source of revenue following a drop in output.
Production sank 15% last year as the government battled a sprawling Islamist insurgency, with attacks increasingly targeting the mining industry. The West African nation, which exports the vast majority of its gold, is now looking to build a refinery to boost the value it gets from mining the commodity.
“The refinery is necessary,” Interim President Ibrahim Traore said in an interview with state broadcaster Radiodiffusion Television du Burkina. It’s among proposed changes to the sector that “we need to see to imperatively.”