• Libreville announces a broad review of mining contracts and payments

• Audit aligns with talks toward a possible IMF financing program

• Move follows a similar initiative launched by Ghana in 2025

Gabon’s government said on December 18, following a cabinet meeting, that it will launch a wide-ranging audit of the mining sector in 2025.

The announcement aligns Gabon, a major manganese producer in Central Africa, with Ghana, which has also launched a similar reform this year. In October, Accra asked gold producers operating in the country to submit financial data covering the past ten years. That audit, scheduled to run through June 2026, will review accounting records, tax payments, and export data. While Gabon has yet to publish a detailed timeline, authorities have already outlined several elements of how the audit will be carried out.

The government plans to publish all existing mining agreements in full and to conduct a comprehensive audit of contracts signed between 2010 and 2024. As in Ghana, the initiative is presented as part of a broader effort to clean up the mining sector. In Gabon’s case, however, officials say the audit is also tied to ongoing discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a potential new financing program.

The IMF suspended a previous arrangement after the 2023 coup and has yet to send a new mission to Libreville. A visit initially scheduled for June was postponed at the government’s request to allow more time to complete a full assessment of the country’s economic and financial situation. While the mining audit appears to fit into this preparatory phase, the authorities have not yet indicated what measures could follow from its findings.

Like Ghana, Gabon hosts several foreign mining companies, including France’s Eramet, China’s Huazhou, and Australia’s Fortescue. According to EITI-Gabon, mining accounted for just 7% of the country’s extractive revenues in 2022, compared with 93% for hydrocarbons. In Ghana, by contrast, mining remains a core pillar of the economy, with gold alone contributing 7.2% of GDP in 2023.

The announcements in Gabon and Ghana come several years after a similar audit in Mali. Launched in 2022, that review uncovered between CFA300 billion and CFA600 billion ($535 million to $1.07 billion) in unpaid dues owed by mining companies to the state. The Malian government has since stepped up recovery efforts, at times clashing with some operators. In early December, authorities said they had already collected CFA761 billion as part of that process.

Aurel Sèdjro Houenou