Why evicted Mubende gold miners rejected new site

MUBENDE.

About 70,000 artisanal gold miners in Mubende District, who were evicted in August, have rejected a new site government had given them on suspicion that it may not have gold reserves.
Government had zoned for the miners a 10 square kilometre piece of land as an alternative for them after they were displaced in an area licensed to two Ugandan firms.
The new site is located in Madudu, Kitumbi and Kalwana sub-counties.
The secretary general of Ssingo Artisanal and Small Scale Miners Association (SASMA), Mr Emmanuel Kibirige, said majority of the miners have rejected the newly zoned site.
“There is no proof that there is gold in that area. The area is currently occupied by cultivators who may not allow us to take up the land,” Mr Kibirige said.
The association has at least 10,000 miners. On August 4, the police and the army evicted an estimated 70,000 artisanal miners from mining sites in Kitumbi and Bukuya sub-counties.
Many of the evicted miners are stranded and are living in areas such as Rwebituuti, Lugongwe, Kalata, Kasanda, Bukuya adjacent to their former mining sites, hoping that government will allow them to return to the mining sites.
“It is our request that we are restored in the mines where we were evicted. In our former area, we had already struck gold. Now the government officials want us to start to explore afresh,” said Mr Kibirige.
The once booming mining sites are a shadow of their former self. A gram of gold used to cost between Shs100,000 and Shs150,000.
The more than 10 sites in Kitumbi and Bukuya sub-counties are currently under close watch of police and other security agencies and they do not allow the evicted miners to access the mines.
In a letter dated June 28, addressed to Members of Parliament from Mubende District, President Museveni directed artisanal miners in Mubende District to vacate areas which government licensed to investors.
“The investor is there to help us to know whether there is gold and, if so, how much of it. Why should anybody interfere with this?” the President wrote. Mr Museveni directed that those who invaded where the investor had made excavations must get out.

Security concern
The Mubende Deputy Resident District Commissioner, Ms Olive Kiiza Tinkamalirwe, said the miners should cooperate with government as it streamlines activities in the mining sites.
Ms Tinkamalirwe said the mines had attracted people from many parts of Uganda and neighbouring countries, posing a security threat because some of them entered the country illegally.
She added: “Government will put in place a mechanism of registering all miners and supporting them with other government programmes to ensure that there is law and order in the mines.”
Merokose Asiimwe, a 25-year-old miner, said: “I used to mine in Lugingi (gold mine). The eviction left me unemployed. I migrated to Mubende from Ntungamo (district) with other youths. Unfortunately, the unemployment that came as a result of the eviction has forced some girls to become prostitutes.”
Ms Winnie Ngabirwe, the executive director of Global Rights Alert (GRA), a natural resource advocacy non-governmental organisation in the area, said there is no guarantee that the miners will access the new site.
“Government should devise a framework so that there are no conflicts between current land users and the evicted miners who may be mistaken as land grabbers in the new site,” Ms Ngabirwe said.
According to the principal mining engineer in the Ministry of Energy, Mr Vincent Kedi, the miners should accept to be regulated and take up the new site because mineral surveys have already confirmed the presence of gold reserves in the area.
He said the areas where the miners were evicted had already been licensed to Gemstone International and AUC Ltd before the eviction was conducted.
“Let us build the mining sector together, be licensed, pay taxes and accept to be well regulated,” Mr Kedi said.
According to the Mubende District natural resource officer, Mr Vincent Kinene, the 10 square kilometre piece of land earmarked for miners has already been mapped and it will be well planned, fenced off and miners educated on responsible and sustainable mining.
Mr Kinene said government is comfortable with miners forming cooperatives, companies and associations which can be licensed instead of operating as individuals.