Ministry of mining automates its systems

Mining Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala. The Ministry of Mining has adopted an automated system to manage licensing for mineral prospecting and collection of royalties. FILE PHOTO |   NATION MEDIA GROUP

By NATION REPORTER
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The Ministry of Mining has adopted an automated system to manage licensing for mineral prospecting and collection of royalties.

The move is meant to increase revenue collection from the sector.

According to a gazette notice published by Cabinet Secretary for Mining Najib Balala, the online system will process fresh applications for mining rights effective Monday.

Data on existing mineral rights holders and pending applications will also be transferred to the database.

ALL MINERAL RIGHTS

“The mining registry is transformed into an online transactional mining cadastre for the management of all mineral rights and mineral dealers operations in the country including communication, reporting and payments,” the notice read.

President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to launch the new system Tuesday.

It comes just months after Mr Balala announced plans to restructure the ministry in a bid to boost revenue collection.

Revenue collection department

The changes would see setting up of a revenue collection department within the ministry and two officers redeployed to the port of Mombasa on full-time basis to monitor verification of minerals in a bid to stem illegal exports.

Kenya is home to several minerals including gold and rare earth metals whose value is estimated to run into billions of shillings.

However, according to government records, illegal trading has denied the country a chance to earn corresponding income.

The situation has also been worsened by the fact that the country relies on the Mining Act that dates back to 1940, which according to industry analysts, fails to take into consideration recent developments.