by Denis Elamu
JUBA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan seeks to regulate the hitherto chaotic gold production from illegal miners after having signed new exploration agreements with two foreign companies to boost production, a senior official said Thursday.
"There is a consortium of two companies Dove from Hong Kong which manufactures all the mining equipment and also trains people who have imported their mining equipment and 4MB company from Panama that provides finances to any mining companies that apply to it," Andu Ezbon, the ministry of mining undersecretary told Xinhua.
"We know very well that gold is going out but we don't know the amount at all. The problem is that there is a lot of gold occurrence (in Kapoeta) where the natives exploit this gold just in their backyard," he said.
Oil and mineral-rich South Sudan has seen much of its gold being illegally siphoned off across neighboring countries despite having the Mining Act 2012 and the cadastre system to monitor and organize the nascent mining sector.
"Nobody knows at all how much gold is produced normally. If the production is known there is payment of royalty. That's why now the government is trying to bring these investors to make an organized gold production," Ezbon said.
He revealed that the two mining companies under the agreement will provide the equipment to start the gold production earning them 45 percent of the gold being produced and 55 percent share for South Sudan within a period of 20 years.
The ministry of mining has since 2015 registered 43 mineral exploration companies which have all abandoned activities in the field due to the more than three years of violence.
But insecurity along major roads linking the capital to the remote mining regions has led to killings of miners in spite of the government trying to beef up security.
He added that lack of power has stopped any efforts to exploit other minerals like copper in the country which depends 98 percent on oil revenues to finance its fiscal budget.
"For the natives there is no problem because they don't exploit a lot of gold, but when foreigners came in like Somalis, Kenyans, Ugandans and Darfurians then it became a hazard there were even crimes among themselves," Ezbon said. Enditem
