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Burkina Faso & Ivory Coast will hand control of railway to mining firm
Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast have decided to turn over operation of the Abidjan-Ouagadougou railway to mining company Pan African Minerals, and the line will be extended to its planned manganese mine, Burkina Faso’s prime minister said.
Burkina’s premier, Luc Adolphe Tiao, told Reuters that the French conglomerate Bollore’s contract to operate the 1,260 km railway from the Ivory Coast port of Abidjan to Burkina’s capital Ouagadougou had expired. In a recent interview, “We’ve decided to create a new railway company. This company will be in charge of rehabilitating and operating the line.”
Pan African Minerals, which is developing a large manganese mine at Tambao in the northeast of Burkina Faso, will control 55 percent of the new operation, Tiao said. The start-up of production at Tambao is a priority for the government of Burkina Faso as it seeks to diversify its economy and tax revenue away from reliance on gold and cotton.
Tiao also said the governments had sent a letter to Bollore last week to notify it of their decision. Currently, the railway handles 40 freight trains and 12 passenger trains a week, according to Bollore’s Web site. Bollore will hold 25 percent in the new rail operator, and the two governments will each control 10 percent, he said.
A spokesman for Ivory Coast’s Transport Ministry confirmed that a letter was sent to Bollore last week with the plans for the new company. An official spokesman for Bollore Africa Logistics, the transport and logistics division of the French conglomerate in Africa, could not immediately be reached for comment.
A source at the French firm confirmed, however, that a new company would be created, in which Bollore would hold 25 percent and Pan African minerals 55 percent, to renovate the railway line and extend it as far as the town of Kaya, which lies some 100 km northeast of Ouagadougou and 210 km south of the Tambao mine.
