Swiss commodities companies have been accused of depriving the people of Burkina Faso of millions of pounds a year in tax for the gold being dug out of the impoverished country’s mines.
The Berne Declaration NGO claims to have traced the true origins of gold being processed in Switzerland. The gold was claimed to have come from Togo, but it actually derived from mines in Burkina Faso, where child labour and dangerous conditions are commonplace. The Berne Declaration explored how it could be that official Swiss records claimed the small African country of Togo was exporting thousands of kilograms of gold to Switzerland every year, despite the fact that it is not a major producer of the precious metal.
The NGO claims to have discovered that much of the “Togo” gold – at least seven tonnes a year of it – is actually produced in Burkina Faso. Through a network of intermediaries, it is smuggled over the border to Lomé in Togo, where it is shipped off to Switzerland to be refined.
By doing this, the miners avoid Burkina Faso’s export taxes, instead only having to pay the Togo tax which is some 10 times lower, the report said.
The fact that the gold so clearly is not mined from its registered country of origin, the Berne Declaration said, makes a mockery of the industry’s claim to adhere to OECD and London Bullion Market Association guidelines that they must ensure gold is from mines that do not use child labour. “It is time for mandatory human rights due diligence,” the report concludes.
According to the report, between 30 and 50 per cent of the Burkina Faso miners are children, often working 12-hour shifts. It highlighted five mines in particular.
The refiner in Switzerland accepted that the gold came from Burkina Faso, but said it did not come from the mines named in the report. Its chief executive told The Independent it was standard practice for miners to export their goods from a different country to the mine, perhaps for tax reasons.
The London Bullion Market Association, which lists the refiner among its approved companies, said it would follow up such allegations “as appropriate”.
Berne Declaration and other NGOs have repeatedly highlighted how some Western companies have exploited poor countries by extracting their minerals but paid little in the way of tax.
