Resolute Mining CEO Terence Holohan and two other employees who were detained by the Mali government earlier this month have been released from the country.
The staff members had been held for more than a week after travelling to the country for meetings with the nation’s tax and mining authorities.
Resolute agreed to pay $US160 million ($242 million) to the Mali government to help resolve the tax dispute.
In a statement, the mining company confirmed the three staff members had been “released from the Economic and Financial Centre of Bamako”.
“All three employees are safe and well and have departed the country,” the company confirmed.
A judicial source claimed the release came after the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two parties.
The Perth-based company said on Monday that the memorandum of understanding, or protocol, provided that all outstanding claims against the company with Mali’s government, including those related to tax, customs levies, maintenance and management of offshore accounts, are settled.
Resolute Mining’s stocks have plunged in the days after the company publicly confirmed the news that the three executives were detained.
The Australian company has been working for years at Mali’s Syama gold mine, a large-scale operation in the country’s south-west.
Workers at the Syama mine in Mali, which is set to be the world’s first fully automated underground mine. (Supplied: Resolute Mining)
It holds an 80 per cent stake in the mine, while the Malian government holds the remaining 20 per cent.
This arrest is the latest controversy in Mali’s foreign-dominated and crucial mining sector, increasingly scrutinised by the military authorities. Four employees of Canadian company Barrick Gold also were detained for days in September.
Mali is one of Africa’s leading gold producers, but has struggled for many years with jihadi violence and high levels of poverty and hunger.
The military seized power in 2020 and since then the junta has placed foreign mining companies under growing pressure as it seeks to shore up the government’s revenues.
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