The Minister of Energy and Mineral Development Ruth Nankabirwa has pledged that her entire ministerial team is to concentrate on improving the performance of the Directorate of Geological Survey and Mines for the country to know its presence and performance as far as mineral development and explorations are concerned.
While speaking during her one-day visit at the directorate offices in Entebbe on Monday, the former Kiboga Woman Member of Parliament said that the Directorate of Geological Survey and Mines (DGSM) has done a lot of work in discovering all the minerals majority of Ugandans are enjoying but few people know about it.
DGSM was established in 1919 (it’s now 102 years) with a mandate to Establish, Promote Development, and Strategically Manage and Safeguard the Rational and Sustainable Exploitation and Utilization of Mineral Resources for Social and Economic Development.
Despite its good performance, the directorate has always been silent and little is known about it, a factor that in one way has led to its underfunding and also having few workers to back up its performance as a directorate manning the country’s minerals.
Speaking during the engagement meeting with members of the DGSM, Ms Nankabirwa said her ministry dedicated two quarters of this current Financial Year to DGSM with the purpose of amplifying its efficiency and visibility.
“We must amplify the mineral subsector and this quarter is very important because we begin with the budget preparation. So we are lucky that we have started the new year with the mineral subsector, therefore we need to see how to package our budget and fund requirements,”the Minister said.
On challenges such as inadequate funding to support key sector strategies and Inadequate Legal and Regulatory Frameworks to address some of the emerging issues in the sector, minister Nankabirwa advised members to see them as new avenues of opportunities to move forward.
“New challenges come with new thinking, it cannot be business as usual, no it must be business unusual. New challenges like Covid-19 led to the cut of many ministerial budgets. Therefore, we need strategic thinking, we need to think about where to put money to get much more money. I see minerals as one of the areas that can bring money very quickly to Uganda’s economy. So we should not seat and lament about inadequate funding but table clear plans worthy fight for before cabinet.”
She also promised that her team is going to pursue the mining and mineral bill and defend it before the parliament to see that some challenges are settled completely in case it’s passed.
Despite its silence, DGSM has achieved great achievements such as upgrading of Mining Cadaster Registry System (MCRS) function to an e-government (online) based mineral licensing system and a transition from a paper-based to an online system. Due to this arrangement, a total of 516 licenses were granted as of 31/03/2020 (exploration, location, mining, and retention); compared to 675 in F/Y 2018/19.
Training, Sensitization and Registration of Artisanal and Small-scale Miners (ASM) across the country are also ongoing. Currently, the number of registered ASM associations has increased to 158 associations and 15,427 members are subscribing to associations in different parts of the country and so far over 70 licenses have been granted to ASMs country-wide.
As a way of enhancing its activity, the directorate has a geological museum however according to Molly Bakka a senior geologist little is known about the museum yet it stores a lot of knowledge for those in need of investing in mining.
Economically, the mining sector according to statistics from the directorate, contributed 1.6 percent in 20/21 to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and due to the intervention being carried out such as formalizing illegal mining in the next two years it is expected to be at 5 percent.
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