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owever, six months on from the start and less intensive There is a lot more of an
Hof the crisis, the industry is back on care COVID pa-
steady footing. Established Australian tients. unknown in other countries
miners across the continent continued “There is a lot in the region. In places like
operations uninterrupted. Base Re- more of an unknown
Sie
sources Ltd (Kenya), Perseus Mining Ltd in other countries in “rra Leone and Liberia, the
(Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire) and Resolute the region. In places social disruption from COVID is
Mining Ltd (Mali and Senegal) all man- like Sierra Leone
aged the onset of the pandemic without and Liberia, the so- potentially more damaging and
a loss of operational performance. Even cial disruption from
West African Resources Ltd, which only COVID is potentially could spill over into the political
poured first gold from its Sanbrado gold more damaging and security sector.
mine in Burkina Faso in March, reported could spill over into
no material impact to ramp-up through the political security
June. Meanwhile ASX-listed explorers sector.”
have restarted drilling campaigns after Assistant High rican governments, like those in South
short delays in April and May. Commissioner Glenn Askew said there East Asia, are better prepared. West Af-
Following the initial scramble to ensure was noticeably less disruption to day-to- rican health systems are severely under-
the health and well-being of employees, day life in Ghana than in many developed funded compared to their Western equiv-
contractors and host communities, Aus- nations. alent but past tragedies – chief among
tralia’s African mining contingent are now “Apart from a couple of weeks of light them the Ebola crisis of 2014 – meant
preparing to ensure their companies are lockdown, really life has gone on as it governments had recently enacted public
equipped to handle the next stage of the was,” Askew told Paydirt. “There are health strategies which they could base
pandemic and resilient enough to negoti- some people wearing masks in commu- their COVID-19 response on. So, while
ate whatever it is the “new normal” looks nities but the economic impact has not Western governments floundered in their
like. been the same as in the West with peo- response, West African counterparts
The lack of wholescale disruption ple losing their jobs – people continue to were able to act almost immediately.
could be a result of the impact of the pan- work in the informal economy, which sup- The same was true for the Australian
demic itself on West Africa. ports most people here, just as they did miners and contractors operating in the
Speaking from the Australian High before the crisis.” region.
Commission in Accra, Ghana, Australian It may be that the wave of infection is “Perseus’s response to the onset of the
High Commissioner Andrew Barnes said yet to truly arrive in West Africa. COVID crisis in West Africa was decisive
the West African country was dealing “In some ways this region is behind and well-rehearsed,” Perseus managing
relatively well with the pandemic. the rest of the world,” Askew said. “The director Jeff Quartermaine told Paydirt.
“It has done a huge amount of testing numbers never really started going up “With executives who had experienced
and they have got a number of reason- until well into April/May. You might see a first-hand the Ebola crisis in Sierre Leo-
able quality hospitals and reasonable spike in a couple of months.” ne in 2016, we recognised that time was
capacity to deal with both intensive care Another explanation is that West Af- of the essence and we rapidly adopted
an ‘island’ mode of operation for each of
our mines, as well as a modified version
of this model for our development site at
Yaoure.
“This operating model involved divid-
ing our sites into three discrete zones,
green, orange and red zones, each car-
rying a different level of risk and each
with differing standards for entry. The
objective of adopting this measure was to
ensure continuity of the core parts of our
business, irrespective of what was taking
place offsite.”
Contractors and service providers
were faced with the same challenges as
miners and explorers. For Lycopodium
Ltd managing director Peter De Leo,
quick, decisive action was essential.
“The response from our chairman [Mi-
chael Caratti], who was able to give a
lot of high-level thought and guidance,”
De Leo said. “He came back from over-
seas in January and read it early. So, we
started thinking pretty quickly about how
to deal with the pandemic. A COVID-19
Quarantine restrictions have meant longer swings for expats and more responsibility for
local employees on African mines

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT aUgUST 2020 Page 19