It will be a serious misuse of trust should The Government of The Gambia 
mislead the people into another costly and totally preventable 
litigation like one with the Swiss Group Alimenta. Lets do it for the 
sake of The Gambia, please!

Malanding Jaiteh

 Courtesy of FOROYAA Newspaper at -   
http://allafrica.com/stories/200802200564.html


Gambia: Carnegie Minerals PLC Denies Allegations

FOROYAA Newspaper (Serrekunda)

20 February 2008
Posted to the web 20 February 2008

Carnegie Minerals Plc, an Australian based mining company whose licence 
was revoked by the government of The Gambia, has denied the allegations 
made against it at a recent press conference convened by government 
officials.

The denial is contained in a release issued by RSN, the company news 
service.

According to Alan Hopkins, MD of Carnegie, "We strongly refute all 
charges that the Gambian Government has levied against us. We have been 
operating in The Gambia since 1999 and have always strongly adhered to 
the legal processes as set out by the Gambian Government and our mining 
licence."

"The company strongly refutes these allegations that the Company has 
been commercially mining Titanium, Iron ore and Uranium from its mineral 
sands Licence in The Gambia" stated the release.

The release went on to say "The Company wants to make clear that a 
component of mineral sands (Ilmenite for which we are licensed to mine) 
is Titanium and Iron oxide. We would also like to clarify that trace 
amounts of uranium occurring in the Gambian mineral sands are usual for 
such deposits and cannot be economically extracted and therefore have no 
commercial value. The Company has previously notified the Gambian 
Government of this trace occurrence in its previous information 
submission and that Carnegie was willing to pay for independent 
international industry experts to review the Company's mining data to 
assist with their understanding of it."

The Company further claimed: "The Company has provided to The Gambian 
Government continuous full disclosure with each shipment since the start 
of the project. This included all weights, Independent SGS laboratory 
results & pricing calculations. SGS is one of the world's leading 
testing and inspection businesses.

"Under the agreement signed with The Gambian Government prepared under 
the guidance of the Commonwealth Development Corporation Ltd of the UK, 
in the event any issue arose in relation to the project, there is a 
clear pre-agreed process which involves independent arbitration in London."

Attempts to get the reaction of either the Secretary of State for 
Communication and Information Technology or the Secretary of State for 
Works, Construction and Infrastructure, yesterday, was unsuccessful. But 
we will continue to do so.

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤