Africa challenged to ensure minerals benefit its people

By Michael Haonga

14th February 2012

 

Finance Minister Mustafa Mkulo

African countries have been challenged to ensure that their mineral richness played a more prominent role in the global economy.

Finance Minister Mustafa Mkulo gave the challenge in Dar es Salaam yesterday in his opening speech at the 16th meeting of the intergovernmental committee of experts.

He said: “Many African countries are endowed with abundant mineral resources, but despite their richness the continent plays insignificant role in the global economy".

“This is a challenge which needs to be addressed by our African countries and the Eastern Africa sub region in particular,” Mkulo added.

He said the proposal that APRM serve as an instrument to improve governance of the natural resource was timely and relevant for African countries and should be taken up.

“We have to find African solutions to African problems …I think APRM might provide a powerful way of improving natural resource governance in the region,” Minister Mkulo said.

He cited Tanzania as one of the countries which were endowed with natural resources such as minerals, gas, forestry and fisheries and that the mining sector for instance contributed about 3.3 percent to the economy in 2010, and was projected to account for 10 percent in the year 2025 as per the country's Development Vision 2025.

“Mining is one of the leading sectors in generating foreign exchange earnings …it also has great potentials for employment opportunities and spearheading of both the forward and backward linkages of Tanzania’s economy,’ he said.

He said that accountability and transparency on the part of mining operations were matters of essence adding that the government has undertaken a comprehensive review of the mineral sector where the factors were underpinned in the new mineral policy and the new mining Law.

International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), Director Kathryn Mc Phail said lack of collaboration between the government, civil societies and the community is a result of failure in the sector since it takes time to strengthen them for the benefit of the society.

“We need to know the shared goods and the roles and responsibilities of all the respective bodies so as to help contribute to the society…all institutions should be involved and not just the government and companies,” Phail said.

She added that defining the country’s objective such as creating more employment opportunities will enable a particular country to have a focus based on development.

For his part, Soteri Gatera, Senior economic affairs officer and head of infrastructure & natural resources development, sub-region office for eastern Africa (SRO-EA) said the meeting will also address modern principles that can be used to benefit the communities with minerals.

He said: “There have been underground perceptions that the mining sector is poorly handled and so performing below expectations…and for the sector to have positive results in the community we are organising this workshop to address the challenges.”

“But we want to learn how to benefit from the resources by taking a close look at the procedures of extraction and processing of these minerals so that we can help the ordinary people benefit from them,” Gatera added.

The five -day meeting is attended by participants from Uganda, Burundi, Comoros, DR Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Kenya.

Others include Madagascar, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania and South Sudan.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

0 Comments | Be the first to comment