Mining Sector - Need for Order

Growing up as a little boy we learned in our primary school geography lessons that there is a lot of gold in our country. It was with much pride that when called up by the teacher to recite some of the minerals available in the country, we would readily shout out about the gold of Mayo Darle or the Aluminum of Minim Martap or Fongo Tongo. In our wildest dreams, we figure our country was going to be very rich even before we got to a ripe age. Some 50 years later, and as grown-ups, we are still to feel or see the real impact of the production of gold or even any other minerals in mobilizing national wealth. Now a fully grown-up, Mayo Darle is still, as far as I know, some lost locality in the southerly areas of the Adamawa Region without even a reliable access road. Minim Martap! I can't even figure where that area is found, although my guess is that it is not very far away from Mayo Darle.

In fact, only lately has there been an express government determination to make money out of the nation's vast mineral wealth, the first important sites being identified in many areas of the East Region.

For many years, the East Region was virtually abandoned to itself and its vast mineral resources left at the mercy of just anyone who had either the financial resources or the handy labour to engage in mineral exploration and exploitation with diamonds and gold as the main target.

By their vary intractable nature, spread, as they were over large areas of land, it was difficult to domesticate any companies or initiatives to specific sites; so artisanal or local mining became the order of the day. But government could not let this lucrative activity into private hands; not even when these private investors came, in the main, from foreign countries. Government could not let its natural resources at the disposal of the first comer or the first discoverer. Not when the necessity to fill government coffers so as to address the country's multifarious development needs, required that no area of revenue collection be ignored.

So government set out to give exploration licences to companies which could exploit these resources and consequently pay in taxes into government coffers. It is no secret that mining activity has not only produced a new crop of millionaires in the country, but has also help promote a new spirit in tax evasion.

Last October 25 in Bertoua, headquarters of the mineral-rich East Region, the Minister of Mines, Industries and Technological Development Emmanuel Bonde who oversees the nation's mining sector, closed a meeting on the relaunch of mining activity. At the meeting, a disturbing revelation was made: the State draws less than one per cent of all the potential it is expected to get from mining activity! And yet Cameroon's sub-soils harbour minerals and other potentials which can only be measured in prodigious sums.

But where does the money generated in mining activity go to? It is difficult to say but as long as government contractors delegate their activities to factors and other third parties to work for them, it becomes very difficult to trace production figures or quantities, let alone the money they generate.

Just a few weeks ago, Cameroon was admitted into the Kimberly Process which means that there will have to be greater transparency in the mining of diamonds. There will therefore, be need, to better organise the sector so that its principal actors are not only identified, but are followed up. Along the line the production of gold should also undergo some streamlining so as to make for better tracking.

It is in the obvious desire to conform, not only to the exigencies of the Kimberly Process but also to ensure that the State draws the maximum benefits from its natural resources, that the minister has proscribed the use of sub-contractors and factors in all mining transactions. Those to whom these licences were given will now feel the obligation to live up to the requirements of their contracts. The ministerial initiative will definitely bring order into the mining sector with the immediate benefits being accrued government revenue which will help sustain the president's Greater Achievements Programme.