Flawed contracts are preventing Africa from reaping maximum benefits from its mineral wealth, a UN official has said.

A senior UN regional Advisor in charge of negotiations on natural resources, Mr Martin Ndende, said the continent had not benefited from its mining sector and is haemorrhaging money, partly because African contract negotiators only focussed on taxes and were often corrupt.

“African negotiators are not prepared to negotiate,” Mr Ndende told reporters at a regional meeting on mining sector challenges in Addis Ababa.

“When African countries sign a contract, it is already prepared by foreign companies. We only sign what the governments look at; usually the taxation- how much we gain. They don’t look at the other clauses of the contract; they don’t look at the environmental consequences of the contract and they don’t look at the situation of the people living around the mining area,'' he said.

He pointed out that the problem was also linked to corruption.

READ: Is East Africa ready for the petrodollars?

ALSO READ: AfDB questions gas and oil investment policies

Experts and policy makers from across Africa are gathered in Addis Ababa to discuss challenges in the mining sector and to prepare a model for negotiation that benefits the people of natural resource-rich regions.

“We are trying to build a guide for negotiators and draft a model for local contracts as it is indicated in the African Mining Vision,” Mr Ndende said.

Experts in law, economics, sociology and geography are among the delegates attending the Addis meeting and are drawn from about 30 African countries.

Mr Ndende said the talks were not meant to dissuade the big international corporations from investing in Africa, but to tell them, “come, we can work in a new system in which each of us work in a win-win situation,” he said.

He disclosed that the next meeting would include representatives of the mining corporations.

UN data has shown that while the net income of mining companies increased by 156 per cent in 2010, taxes paid to African countries increased by only 6 per cent.