Show political will to utilise mining sector to create 1-million jobs

In his presentation of the 2020/21 budget, Finance Minister Felix Mlusu included mining among the sectors that the Malawi Government is banking on to create over 1-million that were promised by the ruling Tonse Alliance during the campaign for the court sanctioned fresh Presidential elections.

But the situation on the ground shows that there is little or no action from the government to utilise the potential sector in creating the said 1-million jobs.

Among other problems, there are delays in acquiring and renewing mineral licenses due to delays by the Mineral Resources Committee to meet and scrutinise applications.

There are also delays in getting Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports approved due to bureaucracy which is a disease that has for a long time being crippling government operations.

Government’s failure to allocate adequate funds to the Geological Survey Department and Department of Mines adds salt to the wound.

In addition, there is lack of infrastructure to support the growth of the mining sector with existing mines opting for the expensive use of diesel power as they are not able to access adequate power from the national grid. Roads to mining areas or potential mining areas remain in bad condition while the rail transport sector is in tatters.

Consequently, despite studies proving availability and potential for a number of mineral deposits whose sustainable exploitation can help boost the country’s economy, Malawi’s mining sector is poorly performing with statistics showing that it caters for less than 1% of gross domestic product.

There is, therefore, a need for political will from the country’s leaders to develop the sector by dealing with the problems mentioned above if the sector can be banked on to substantially contribute to creation of over 1-million jobs.

As a strategy, the political leadership should ensure that Government moves fast to operationalise the newly formed state owned mining company to partner private companies from exploration to exploitation of the minerals.

Just as Lecturer and Head of the Department of Geological Engineering at University of Malawi’s Polytechnic Tiyamike Haundi is quoted in our lead article, it is high time there were deliberate policies for Malawi to utilise its minerals.

It is not reasonable to continue importing granite tiles from South Africa and China yet there are a lot of dimension stones that can be used to make these tiles locally and create numerous jobs.

Malawi has a lot of kaolinitic clays that can be used to make ceramic materials such as cups, tiles, vases but it is unfortunate that there are no many serious producers of ceramic wares as Malawi generally imports from China. Government has to support investors to venture into such value addition initiatives.

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