Mineral processing incubates seek support on equipment

Gemstones and mineral processing incubates that were undergoing small scale mining and mineral processing incubation programme under Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) have called on government to assist them in procuring lapidary machinery in a bid to add value to the local semiprecious stones.

The incubates made the call on Friday April 9,2021 during certificate presentation ceremony earmarking accomplishment of a two week hands-on training held at the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Institute (SMEDI) gemstone processing facility at Mponela in Dowa.

During the two week practical training session, 10 incubates drawn from all regions of the country were trained in Gemstone Cutting and Polishing courtesy of African Development Bank financed Small-Scale Mining and Associated Works (SMAW) project facilitated by MUST.

Speaking to Mining and Trade Review, one of the incubates Flore-Annie Kamanga expressed gratitude that the incubation program has been very insightful and has reignited their capacity to compete on international market with cut and polished gems.

Kamanga explained: “The training has come at a right time considering the gemstones that we have in the country; most of them are of less value if we put them on international market hence needing intensive value adding to realize meaningful gains.”

“The training has really been beneficial. This has been proven by the fact that all of us that participated in this program have managed to come up with finished jewelries from locally available gemstones such as citrin, clear and rose quartz.”

She also added that the experience gained from training on value addition has opened a new economic window pane for job creation as all incubates will need extra hands to assist them in running their mass productions.

But she was quick to mention that despite having the capacity to process minerals into finished products the incubates are not going to achieve the desired objective of the project due to limited capital to procure lapidary machinery required when processing the stones.

She said; “Despite being equipped with this expensive knowledge with capacity to transform set up of local extractive sector and economic outlook at large, we still have a big challenge of machinery as they are costly to procure let alone to hire.”

“Due to limited expertise, there is also need for more training centers for value addition. Of course we have SMEDI but it would be appreciated if we could have such centers in all the three regions with a good capacity to access at least.”

The local mining sector currently contributes only about 1% to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and it is characterized by very little value addition and illegal mining coupled with smuggling of raw minerals.
Ellasy Chimimba, a lecturer at MUST and one of the trainers in the SMAW project, said the sole purpose of the project is to maximize profit gains by local miners which in process helps in job creation, development of local extractive sector and transformed economic set-up of Malawi.

“Through this project we are looking forward to train more youths, creating more jobs and promoting value addition of local minerals into marketable jewelries.” Chimimba said MUST signed a Memorandum of Understanding with SMEDI to conduct the training having realized that it is the only institution in the country with an appropriate gem processing unit.

She said: “The incubation has not only been on practical sessions but it has been a range of diverse trainings which the incubated had to go through to complete the course including entrepreneurship and business management trainings.”

“With all these skills the incubates have gained from MUST and SMEDI, we are quite assured that Malawi gemstones will be able to compete effectively on international market”

In his remarks, SMEDI CEO Rodrick Chataika who was the guest of honor at the ceremony said there is need to empower local youths with necessary expertise and equipment required in mineral processing as it has been proved that the sector has tremendous potential to boost Malawi’s mining sector.

Chataika said: “The impact that we would love to create is to see local entrepreneurs being capacitated with skills in mining and mineral processing to utilize untapped natural resources being exploited by foreign nationals and other illicit dealers.”

“There is need for proper policies as well as safeguarding the precious minerals we have in Malawi for them to benefit local investors and citizens at large through range of activities involved during the production process.”

He hailed the mutual working relationship between MUST and SMEDI that has seen 10 incubates being able to produce finished jewelries.

MUST is implementing SMAW, which aims at transferring technical skills to the youth to enable them run successful small scale mining ventures, under the coordination of the Ministry responsible for Youths.

The Ministry of Youth and Sports through the J4Y project is also running other incubation programs in areas such as ICT, agriculture, manufacturing and others in different incubation centres including Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Malawi Agenda 2063 has earmarked mining sector as a key component of attaining local industrialization as government intends to enhance and support local production and export of final products, moving away from exporting raw products.

In the vision, it is highlighted that minerals shall be linked to high-end local production that will be key for high value export and import substitution like steel manufacturing