Rwanda has launched a campaign for mining inspection to inform post-Covid-19 recovery strategies while also helping to contain the spread of the pandemic in this backbone sector.
The inspection team’s instructions include requiring that all mines have adequate tunnel ventilation, de-densification, screening, and testing mechanisms.
Mining companies are also required to implement tracing programs, allow workers to work in shifts and, among other things, provide relevant personal protection equipment ( PPE) that will be needed for around 100,000 people in the industry.
“We request mining and quarry operators to act in accordance with these guidelines to ensure that they are protected from infection in the workplace. This virus is deadly but the good news is that it’s preventable,” said Francis Gatare, CEO of RMB.
Gatare made the remarks at the start of the post-Covid-19 campaign at Carrière de Milles Collines, a Jabana sector quarry site in Gasabo District.
The campaign will be implemented across the country as part of the sector ‘s rapid turn-around potential.
According to the Rwanda Mining Board (RMB), this move would promote the rapid resumption of 100 per cent operations by mining companies with improved employee health and safety measures and the speedy licensing of new applications.
“The mining and quarry owners have to put in place risk assessment mechanisms to identify any risk or hazard to the safety and health in the mining activities,” RMB said.
According to Gatare, by reorganizing small-scale mining operators, consolidating many of them into collective investment groups, and licensing their new collective companies, the sector would also increase profitability.
“They will be supported with international investment mobilization,” Gatare said.
William Bakunda Shyaka, a shareholder at the Carrière de Milles Collines mining site, said the company has been affected by the Covid-19 lockdown as well as others, but he is now hoping to resume working with new targets.
“We are going to start looking for clients and though we have a problem of storing the 2000 cubic meters of concessions which is piled up here, we are sharing this problem with the government and hope to work past these issues, as our partners also resume work,” Bakunda Shyaka said.
For a quick turnaround after Covid-19, the Rwanda Mining Board said it had some more inputs, such as: formalizing regional mineral trade to support local smelters, refineries and all value-added and export businesses, adding value to job creation and raising export revenues, diversifying, focusing on gold, gemstones, and establishing a partnership with international equipment manufacturers.
Others include identifying mining and mineral exploration as a priority in investment code, and setting up a fund to support mineral exploration – aimed at attracting foreign mineral exploration firms, and de-risk exploration investments, the key to achieving industrial mining.
This comes at a time when Rwanda has also established an International Financial Center based in Kigali-whose role is to attract more investments and provide foreign investors with financial consultancy and security.
