Mining
Perekezi presents mining corruption risk assessment to parliament
July 18, 2024 / Wahard Betha
Perekezi Consultants, a mineral sector consulting firm, has presented before the Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources and Climate Change (NRCC) its assessment on corruption risks in mining sector mainly on energy transition minerals.
With funding from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Just Energy Transition (JET) Perekezi is conducting a project to promote transparency and accountability in mining sector.
In an interview at the meeting, Perekezi Consultants Managing Partner Chikomeni Manda said the meeting with the parliamentarians was to remind them of their oversight role in ensuring that no corrupt practice occurs in the mining sector.
Manda said: “We brought the issues about transparency and accountability in the mining sector as part of our project which is looking at the potential of corruption in energy transition minerals.”
“Probably you heard about the world changing from fossil fuels to clean energy so we are implementing this project to ensure that parliament, media and Civil Society Organizations (CSO) are playing their oversight roles very seriously to ensure that mining activities are happening transparently without any forms of corruption.”
“Under this project, we developed a corruption risk assessment. We are not saying there is a corruption going on but there is a risk, and we want the loopholes closed.”
The assessment identified mining stages of higher corruption risk potential namely: license granting process; operational and compliance; renewal and expansion of applications; application submission and initial renewal and; disposal and cancellation stages.
The report says mitigation measures to prevent corruption occurrences within the sector includes: ensuring Integrity in the Mining Licensing Process to enhance the integrity, transparency, and efficiency of the process.
The assessment also calls for collaborative efforts to address the identified risk vulnerabilities and promote sustainable development in the mining sector.
Perekezi consultants also incorporated Malawi Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative (MWEITI) to present before the committee some of the strategies being implemented by the body in the fight against corruption in the extractives sector.
MWEITI Secretariat official Leonard Mushani presented a number of strategies including: EITI reports; development of Beneficial Ownership Disclosure (BOD); Contract Transparency (CT) study which comes up with contract portal and; establishment of MWEITI Anti-Corruption Strategy.
In his remarks, NRCC Chairperson Werani Chilenga welcomed the development but urged for more involvement of parliament in producing MWEITI reports.
Chilenga said: “Our take on the fight against corruption in the mining sector is that we are already an oversight body for government as parliament but what we need as a committee is that we should be involved in EITI issues.”
“They are already doing their job by producing reports but those reports have never come to parliament. We want those reports to be vetted by parliament so that by the end of the day members of parliament should have copies to show to their constituencies,”
Malawi became a member of EITI in 2015 and to-date it has produced six reports.
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The establishment of a stable and self-sustaining ecosystem, but not necessarily the one that existed before mining began. In many cases, complete restoration may be impossible, but successful remediation, reclamation, and rehabilitation can result in the timely establishment of a functional ecosystem.
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Remediation:
The cleanup of the contaminated area to safe levels by removing or isolating contaminants. At mine sites, remediation often consists of isolating contaminated material in pre-existing tailings storage facilities, capping tailings and waste rock stockpiles with clean topsoil, and collecting and treating any contaminated mine water if necessary.
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