Andrew Charles (Charlie) Northfield - Gambia

March 08

This month’s spotlight features the case of British family man Andrew Charles (Charlie) Northfield, who is currently held as a pawn in a bizarre economic wrangle between the British mining company Carnegie Minerals Plc and the Government of The Gambia

Charlie is a mining engineer by profession and it was only in 26 October 2007 that he joined Carnegie Minerals Plc to manage the company’s licensed mines in The Gambia. Carnegie Minerals Plc has been operating in The Gambia since 1999, digging mineral sands which are then sent on to China for use on their vast construction sites. Instead of overseeing that the mines are operated safely and economically viable within their licensing agreement, Charlie was thrown into a Gambian jail on 12 February 2008 and released on bail 10 days later after his company paid a bail deposit of US$450,000. However his passport has been withheld and he is unable to leave the country.

Charlie is facing trial on 17 March 2008 on three counts of economic charges under the Gambian Economic Crimes Decree No. 16 1994 and one count of theft under the country’s criminal code. His company has been charged with the same crimes.

According to the charge sheet of 15 February 2008, between 2006 and December 2007, Charlie and Carnegie Minerals Plc initiated 40 shipments of minerals from Gambian mines without giving the true and accurate value thereof to the Government of The Gambia and thereby causing serious economic loss to Gambia.

Charlie is further charged together with his company of having failed to remit the sum of US$46,516.95 to the Government of The Gambia, which was part of the royalties due to them on mineral sands exploited and shipped from The Gambia between 2006 and December 2007.

For the same period they allegedly also intentionally presented false valuation figures of the aforesaid mineral sands and shipments to the Government of The Gambia thereby leading to a huge financial loss to the detriment of the welfare of the people of Gambia.

Finally he and the company have been charged with the theft of Ilmenite, Zircon and Rutile from mines in Gambia without giving the proceeds of such exportation to the Government of The Gambia.

How did Charlie end up in such a situation?

Carnegie Minerals Plc has publicly stated that since 1999, when a licence was first granted to the company by the Government of The Gambia to operate from the country; they have always worked within the terms of its licence.

The Government of The Gambia had alleged that the Company has been commercially mining Titanium, Iron ore and Uranium from its mineral sands. However the uranium is present only as a trace as it is in most soils and cannot be economically extracted and therefore has no commercial value. Furthermore, Titanium and Iron oxide is an integral component of mineral sands (Ilmenite, for which the company is licensed to mine). The company has continuously provided full disclosure of each shipment since the start of the project. This included all weights, laboratory results & pricing calculations, as supplied by SGS, one the world’s leading testing and inspection businesses, based in Switzerland.

On 15th January 2008 Carnegie Minerals Plc received a letter from the office of the President of The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, who also acts as the Mining Minister, instructing it to cease operations. The tone of the letter had been so alarming that the company immediately withdrew all of its personnel from the country as a safety precaution.

However on 4 February 2008 Gambia’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Marie Saine Firdaus, accompanied by Ousman Jammeh, Secretary-General of the Office of the President, and Head of the Civil Service and Minister of Petroleum and Energy in The Gambia met with the CEO of Carnegie Minerals Plc, Alan Hopkins, in London to state that the Government of Gambia would wish for the mining operations to be resumed. The Minister gave strict assurances that there was no risk to the safety and freedom of Carnegie’s staff. It was only because of these assurances that the company instructed Charlie to travel back to The Gambia in order to start planning the reopening of the mines.

Our concerns

• Charlie had been initially interviewed by police without legal representation present
• Charlie was not an employee of Carnegie Minerals Plc or in The Gambia for much of the period during which crimes are alleged to have been committed.
• The short period between arrest and trial seriously hampers efforts of Charlie to prepare his defence
• The Company had been duped into allowing Charlie to return to The Gambia
• The Company has previously notified the Gambian Government of the uranium trace in its mined sand and stated 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. This offer had never been taken up.
• The licence agreement to mine heavy mineral sands had been prepared under guidance of the Commonwealth Development Corporation Ltd of the UK and had included that in the event of any issue arising in relation to the project, a clear pre-agreed process would follow involving independent arbitration in London. Yet the Government of Gambia did not fulfil their contractual obligations and decided instead to lay spurious charges.
• It is widely acknowledged within the Human Rights Community that the independence of the judiciary, the ability of lawyers to exercise their profession freely and the respect for the rule of law, and the protection of human rights generally in The Gambia is still deeply unsatisfactory. For example the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association (IBA) issued a report in August 2006, concluding that “the judicial system in the Gambia suffers from neglect, under-investment, and a severe lack of resources and infrastructure, resulting from a general de-prioritisation of its importance.” …” The overall attitude to the role of the judiciary…has created a climate where the protection of human rights is undermined and the rule of law subverted”. A further deterioration has been observed since.

In the meantime work at the mines is continuing. The Gambian government is exploiting the infrastructure, training and machinery provided by Carnegie Minerals Plc without having to share the profits of the mining operation. Other potential investors will now think twice when considering whether their investment is this West African state is safe.