Central Province Permanent Secretary Milner Mwanakampwe has urged the speedy processing of Artisanal Small-Scale Mining (ASM) licences for young people without corrupt practices.
Speaking when the Director of ASM at the Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development, Mr Billi Chewe, paid him a courtesy call in Kabwe, Dr. Mwanakampwe says what drives young people into illegal mining activities in the province is the failure by people entrusted with managing applications to attend to them if they do not pay cuts to officials in offices.
He says the fact that young people are applying for ASM licences means they want to survive, citing one of the many issues President Hakainde Hichilema highlighted when he took office in 2021, which was for young people to form cooperatives.
Dr. Mwanakampwe has questioned what young people should be doing when ASM licences take about two years to be issued, and called for the quick processing of the licences.
He said he is grateful that the President, through the Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development, has actualised capacity-building programmes for Central Province.
Dr. Mwanakampwe added that there is a need for aggregation to help find markets for young people to curb unaccounted for mineral transactions to foreigners.
He says foreigners come in large numbers to the mines, buy gold and take it out of the country without the transactions being accounted for, before selling it at exorbitant prices.
The Central Province PS has called for a formalised approach in which young miners are paid through bank accounts, instead of a situation where they receive cash in sacks.
Dr Mwanakampwe also emphasised the need to establish the source of money held by most mineral buyers, stressing the need to control illicit cash flows used to purchase minerals.
By Best Jere
