The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — In the midst of a drastic cost-cutting campaign at its three Tanzanian mines, African Barrick Gold PLC paused to make room for a new priority: a soccer match.
The subsidiary of Barrick Gold Corp. has been slashing costs and reducing jobs from top to bottom. But it made an exception in three areas: public relations, community relations and government relations. Those are the only departments where it is adding staff.
The new priorities are an admission of African Barrick’s need to rehabilitate its brand in Tanzania after years of protests and clashes between local villagers and police at its North Mara gold mine. Dozens of villagers have been killed or injured in clashes at the site in recent years, including another incident last month in which a man was killed and a policeman was injured.
The soccer match between the company’s managers and local community leaders is an example of the company’s new strategy. “It would never have happened a couple of years ago,” Brad Gordon, the company’s new chief executive officer, said at the annual Mining Indaba conference of African mining investors on Tuesday.
To laughter from the audience, he added: “We let them win.”
Mr. Gordon insisted that the company is “starting to get on top” of community issues at North Mara, where thousands of villagers routinely invade the mining site to grab pieces of waste rock where tiny bits of gold can be extracted.
He said the company is developing an underground mine at North Mara, instead of expanding its pits. This could ease tensions by reducing the amount of land that the company needs to acquire from the local community, where 70,000 people live in close proximity to the mine.
But the company’s biggest priority remains its cost-cutting drive. Its parent company, Barrick Gold, has cut or deferred billions of dollars in capital spending over the past year. African Barrick says it has identified $185-million (U.S.) in potential savings and was able to achieve about $100-million in cost reductions last year.
Mr. Gordon said the company has cut its expatriate staff to about 300 from 550 and will keep cutting in the next two years. It is also scaling back its administrative offices, recruiting contractors who are “more efficient,” and even eliminating the position of chief operating officer to save money.
For the rest of this article, click here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/african-and-mideast-business/barrick-hopes-to-score-with-new-measures-in-tanzania/article16700560/#dashboard/follows/