Mining on Track to Realize Homegrown Economic Reform, Says Minister

ENA November 25/2019 The mining sector, which is critical to the realization of the homegrown economic reform, is on the right track, Mines and Petroleum Minister Samuel Urkato said.

Addressing the 2^nd Ethiopian International Mining Conference and Exhibition, Samuel said the ministry formulated new policies that will be approved in months for both mining and petroleum sub-sectors, with close consultations of industries and all key stakeholders.

“We’ve been revisiting our proclamations; regulations and directives to reconsider if there are barriers to our investment activities. In these courses, we issued the revised mineral transaction proclamation, revised our old petroleum proclamation that would be endorsed very soon,” he added.

Based on the suggestions of mining companies, the ministry also revised the directive for licensing area size and also the directive for community development fund management which specifically aims to better connect miners to the community as part of the feasible fiscal instruments.

Apart from directives and policies, the national mining cadastre system was launched a few months back; and now there is no need to come in person for any mining related administrative issues, the minister stated.

The ministry has also been striving to serve its mining clients to do their transactions, reports and licensing related administration works online at their destinations.

To fill the human resources gap in the sector and industries, the ministry has started to collaborate with various international training institutions, it was learned.

“We signed MOU with Australian School of Mines to train key staff for Tulu Kapi Gold Mining industry, which is now going ahead with activities for off-site works starting in December and on-site activities starting in January,” Samuel said.

Production is planned at 1 million ounces of gold over the first 7 years with thousands of jobs to be created in the district beginning next year.

According to the minster, the government is highly committed to improving infrastructure across the country to significantly reduce unnecessary transaction costs to the investment sector.

Cargo facilities, road and railway connections to ports, energy supplies, financial sector reforms, human resources development, ICT and institutional internal business process reforms are stated among the encouraging efforts aimed at promoting investment.