December 31, 2002	Tuesday	Shawwal 26, 1423

NIAMEY: Niger, the third-biggest uranium producer in the world and second poorest country on the planet, has slipped deeper into abject poverty as global uranium prices have plunged.

During the 1980s, uranium, a dense metal with uses ranging from nuclear fuel to yacht keels, generated 80 per cent of the country’s revenue and swelled the government’s coffers, spurring hopes the country could be relieved of its poverty.

The so-called atomic gold, Niger’s main natural resource, also allowed General Seyni Kountche, in power from 1974 to 1987, to stabilize his dictatorship with salary rises and social infrastructure projects.

With an annual production of 2,900 tons in 2001, according to the latest available figures, Niger is along with Russia the third-biggest producer of uranium in the world. The two countries both generate eight per cent of global uranium production while Canada churns out 33 per cent and Australia 21 per cent.

However, a sharp drop in uranium prices since the 1980s has cut into the country’s revenues generated by metal.

When the decline in prices began, Kountche threatened European partners to sell uranium, which can be used in making nuclear weapons, to the “devil”.

Niger’s Prime Minister Hama Amadou said on Tuesday that his country had never sold uranium to Iraq, although “in the 1980s when Iraq was not facing sanctions from the great powers, it tried to buy uranium under the aegis of bilateral cooperation.”

The price slump precipated the country’s descent into more dire poverty as uranium exports were halved from 1990 to 1999.

As early as 1990 the economic situation was so bad as to spark an armed uprising in the northern uranium producing region as well as mutinies in the armed forces.

The devaluation of the CFA franc by 50 per cent in 1990 only provided a brief glimmer of hope for the country’s economic prospects, but that too quickly faded.

“Uranium was the driving force behind growth in the economy of Niger but is now unimportant,” said Sanoussi Jackou, an economist, former minister and president of the National Office of Niger’s Mining Resources.

For more than a decade, the nation’s finances have depended on loans and foreign aid, as Niger slumped lower down the list of the world’s poorest countries.

According to the World Bank, two-thirds of the country’s population of 10 million live on less than one dollar a day.

“Uranium is now a bane for us,” said Ibrahim Yacouba, coordinator of the National Debt and Development Network. He said that during the uranium boom years the country’s debt swelled, growing from 27 billion CFA francs in 1976 to 203 billion in 1982.

The country is now saddled with debt of about one trillion CFA francs, or 82 per cent of its gross domestic product.

The crisis has also forced the two main uranium mining companies in the country, SOMAIR and COMINAK, to cut jobs.—AFP