When it comes to the question of which local companies to subcontract, for the mining companies it is not even an option. As pointed above, since the PFDJ-owned companies have already bankrupted and forced almost every private company in its field out of the market and in the process monopolized the whole economy, the mining companies will have no other alternative than to hire these government-owned companies; and that is exactly what they are doing. Much of the work that doesn't require very specialized tasks like transportation, construction, providing food for the local workers and any other menial jobs will be done by local companies. ... There is no doubt then that the overwhelming majority of the workers in the mining projects are those "hired" by the subcontracted government-owned companies. And that is where the link to slave labor exists at its strongest.
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