After years of deadlock, employees of the Kraomita Malagasy (Kraoma) are receiving their salary arrears. Last week, the company began paying a first installment covering six months of remuneration.
Is the Kraomita Malagasy company starting to stay afloat? Last week, the company’s management paid six months of salary to its employees. They had not received anything since 2019, a period during which Kraoma S.A. was weakened by governance issues.
The acting Director General of the company, Keron Idealson, has opened a dialogue with the employees. “If I am here, it is to provide solutions as a leader, not as a general manager who inspires fear. We are here to find ways to turn this company around,” he declared at the end of the week in Brieville, during his first meeting with the staff.
According to general management, all employees have received six months of salary, including those who have retired. The shares owed to deceased employees were paid to their beneficiaries. The company was able to settle these arrears after the Anti-Corruption Pole and the Ministry of Justice transferred twenty billion ariary to Kraoma’s accounts, following a court decision. “These five million US dollars were returned to our treasury. This sum allowed us to pay, immediately, six months of salary to the employees,” explains Keron Idealson.
The employees, previously discouraged, say they have regained a glimmer of hope. “We were discouraged, but we are delighted to have received six months of salary,” one of them confided. Part of this sum will also be used to relaunch Kraoma’s activities in Brieville.
The general management had announced its intention to initiate reforms within Kraoma. This decision perhaps marks a turning point for this company, which has been in difficulty since 2019 and has not exported chrome since that time.
Since 2018, the company’s status has constantly evolved. Russian investors had been called upon to join the capital alongside the State. After the departure of the Russian company Ferrum Mining, the Malagasy state-owned enterprise responsible for chrome mining had to face its debts, as well as a chrome price too low to allow it to make profits. Kraoma was thus left abandoned, with debts reaching 9.6 million euros, according to the 2018 financial statements.
According to Jeune Afrique, the company also had to face arrears of 5 million euros to the multinational Stork, based in Austria. Faced with low prices, the mine ended up collapsing under its own weight. In 2019, only 15,000 tonnes of chrome were exported, while the tonne was trading at 120 dollars in China. The management at the time had explained that “production and transport costs from the deposit to the port of Toamasina were already close to this amount,” reports Jeune Afrique.
Kraoma has mainly produced and exported high-quality chromite since the beginning of its extraction activities in 1968. The concentrated chrome it produces trades between 285 and 320 dollars per tonne for standard qualities. Superior quality ores can reach 350 to 370 dollars per tonne. This renewed vitality of the international market could benefit Kraoma in the coming years, provided that extraction activities are relaunched and the company’s governance is cleaned up.
Captured & Published at: 2026-07-06 06:13:07 (Madagascar Local Time EAT)
Original Source: https://www.lexpress.mg/2026/07/kraoma-letat-paie-les-arrieres-de.html
