Ministry to mining firm: Use hands, not machines

Kabarole. The ministry of Energy has suspended the mining of pozolana using an excavator at Harugongo and Kicwamba Sub-counties in Kabarole District.
This comes after local miners accused the investor of rendering them jobless by replacing them with machines.
The more than 238 pozolana miners early this month petitioned the Kabarole District chairman, Mr Richard Rwabuhinga, asking him to halt the works of M/s Royal Transit Company.
This, however, attracted the attention of the Energy ministry which held a meeting with both parties on Friday before suspending Royal Transit Company operations in the area.
Mr Gideon Munyoro, the mines inspector-in-charge of Western Uganda, said for one to embark on mining they must be issued with mining licences from the ministry.
The investor in this case is issued with licences, including prospecting licence, which expires after one year, location license, and exploration licence for three years and mineral dealers’ licence.

What law says
The Mining Act, 2003, section 54 sub-section (2) stipulates: “Location licence means for prospecting and mining operations by the methods which do not involve substantial expenditures and use of specialised technology and for the purposes of this section.”
“One of the limitations of location licence is that the investor is not supposed to use the capital which is more than Shs10 million and use of an excavator is wrong because it breaches the law. Therefore without fear or favour I suspend the use of an excavator,” Ms Munyoro said.
Mr Munyoro advised Royal Transit Company to employ casual labourers if they still want to supply pozolana to Hima Cement Factory.
Mr John Musiime, a resident of Harugongo, said: “We are very happy to see that we have been considered because from the time the Royal Transit Company replaced us with an excavator, many of the people were left jobless. We hope that now we are going to resume our business.”
Since 2014 when Royal Transit Company started using an excavator, more than 500 miners were left jobless.
According to the local minners, before Royal Transit Company was contracted, they would load more than 50 trucks of the mineral from Harugongo and Kichwamba and earn a combined Shs5 million per day.
Mr Tadeo Mukonyezi, the manager of Royal Transit Company, said when they started business they employed causal labour but later Hima Cement Factory changed the terms of the contract.
“Hima preferred the use of machines to mine and load instead of the local miners,” Mr Mukonyezi said.
Mr Mukonyenzi appealed to the ministry of energy to give him time to revise his location license but not to suspend his license.