One of the major challenges that confront the Malian operations is the development and empowerment of local employees. The skills base of the local workforce at their operations ranges from unskilled employees with no formal education or training to highly educated employees who have mostly obtained their qualifications in Eastern Europe and France. Due to the fact that the mining industry is relatively new in Mali these highly qualified employees have not had much formal training or had the opportunity to gain much practical mining experience.

A number of managerial and highly skilled positions at the operations are therefore held by expatriate employees.

One of the key focus areas is to develop local employees so that in the medium term they will be able to take over these positions. A practical approach has been embarked upon to develop Malian employees and promote our localisation programs.

As a starting point, the East and West Africa Region?s Training Manager, Chris Britz, has developed competency profiles for all jobs. The profile basically outlines the competencies, experience and qualifications required for each job. A detailed analysis of each of the job incumbents is then conducted and the gap between the ideal profile and the actual profile is identified. A training needs analysis is then conducted and training programs are developed to address the deficiencies.

An engineering training school has been established at Morila mine that caters for the Malian operation. Engineering learners are developed over a three-year period to become qualified artisans. The first learners qualified at the end of 2003. This school is the only one of its kind in Mali.

?There are basically three focus areas within the training intervention,? says Peter Geleta, Senior Human Resources Manager for the East and West Africa region. ?Firstly we want to improve the skills levels of our employees in their current jobs so that they can work efficiently, safely and most of all they can enjoy their work. Secondly we need to develop employees to their full potential and thirdly we need to identify locals with talent that can be developed into our future managers.

?To address our future manpower needs with regards to local managers we have embarked on an aggressive process of identifying locals with potential and implementing individual needs based development plans. A number of these employees have been included in the Company Management Development Programmes that are run annually in South Africa.? Local graduate employees who perform well and show the necessary potential are offered the opportunity to join our management in training programmes. The mine has recently appointed an Engineering MIT and a Metallurgical MIT at Morila Mine.

?We are in the process of developing a data-base to identify Malians studying abroad with the aim of offering talented individuals the opportunity to join our MIT programmes once they have completed their studies,? says Peter. ?A further intervention being embarked upon to ensure we have local managers to cater for our future manpower needs is our bursary scheme. For the first time we will identify 10 school leaving pupils with potential and offer them mining related bursaries to come and study in South Africa in 2004.

?We are optimistic that through all our training efforts we will contribute to the skills upliftment at our operations and in Mali as a whole. We are confident that in the medium term our operations will be managed by Malian employees.?