Exactly Woody, and a very good point, this is why Australian companies who are successful in West Africa MUST have their executive management LIVING in the country their main project is located in.
This includes their CEO and MD and CFO and ESG officer and COO and PR officer.
It is a folly exposed by any company that expects a PROXY in-country executive officer to do their job locally for them, even when they say their in-country people are experienced and responsible. It's still not the same as having the executive management On-Site every day to deal with operational and government issues, which they surely cannot do effectively via the latest shareholder paid for mobile phone from a trendy leafy coffee shop located on an elegant West Perth avenue while dipping their croissant in a Cappuccino.
You hit the nail on the head my friend.
Pure and simple, if you have the 4th or 5th largest Lithium mine in the world in Mali, then you should be living right there if you are a full-time executive employee, simply because it mitigates the risk a thousand fold, compared to repeated long business class flights (lobster and champagne) from Perth to Bamako all the time. If management of the company are not prepared to do this, then they should not be employed in management, no matter what their reputation is.
The person you refer to in your post is obviously NOT doing his so called "bloody job" effectively enough, but because executive management are not living on the ground with him day-by-day then they cannot correct the issue in a timely manner.
I've worked up in the rarefied privileged air of corporate West Perth, in the streets next to parliament, and it's way past time that the blue-bloods in mining all working and living up there realize this. I can understand them not wanting to make the sacrifice, and giving up all the cushy privileges and lifestyle, but in the end it only brings shareholder wealth destruction and heartache.
My estimate is that 70% of those privileged mining executes living up in West Perth should not be in the business, because many of them are psychopaths and committed to only one thing - their own wealth creation. As you will know from psychiatry, psychopaths are wired wrong, they have no ability to feel any compassion, and are completely devoid of ethics, because they are the essential narcissists. You can read online, the surveys that show the normal level of psychopathy in the community is about 7%, but in CEO's of listed companies it's up at nearly 40%. I know it will never happen, but personally I'd like to a regulation that puts up a psychometric evaluation of anyone wanting to be company director. Of course, psychopaths would not be barred from being directors, but it would give me a "key indicator" of the level or potential risk that I may expect from my investment, and it might explain the tone of many company announcements.
Yes, I think you are right, it is an ignorance in Mali of the current JV structure, but no-one seems to be (repeatedly) correcting the government bureaucracy or the the local mining journalists and Mali media of the issue. Currently, it's an in-country weakness of the company, and it's one that should be addressed ASAP. I can only assume, that up in West Perth, LLL currently do not have anyone aware of the issue, or do not have anyone with enough intelligence or awareness of the issue to mitigate it.
A one month suspension is problematic, especially when the initial announcement stated the halt would be for two days. It gives one the impression that management never knew the extent of the REAL problem right from the start, they thought it might be solved in two days, but were obviously sorely mistaken, or misinformed, or not doing their job.
I'd say the solution (potentially) involves a corporate restructure.
Gw
LLL Price at posting:
$1.14 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)