The buzz among the 7,500 execs gathered in Cape Town, South Africa, last weekend for the Mining Indaba convention was all about Tony Blair has become a power broker in Africa.
The former prime minister of Britain runs a charity, the Africa Governance Initiative, which advises the governments of Rwanda, Liberia, Sierre Leone and Guinea on how to become more competent. He also has a for-profit consultancy, Tony Blair Associates, which advises Mubadala Development Company, a $20 billion Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund.
“It’s a clear conflict of interest. He’s representing both the buyer and the seller,” one source told me.
Blair has visited Guinea at least seven times in two years, according to Britain’s Telegraph, and has become close with Alpha Conde, who became president of Guinea in 2010 in what his opponents charged was a rigged election.
Mubadala signed a $5 billion deal with Conde’s government in December for bauxite, aluminum ore. Guinea also has huge iron deposits.
Blair is said to have collected more than $75 million since he left office in 2007 and joined the private sector.