Mozambique Loses 90 Million Meticais Due to Illegal Mining

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(File photo) mining, miner, hard hat, mine
16 August 2023
Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)

Maputo — It is estimated that Mozambique loses revenues in the order of 90 million meticais (1.4 million dollars at the current exchange rate) a year due to illegal mining, according to the National Director of Geology and Mining, Cândido Rangeiro.

According to Rangeiro, who was speaking at a meeting of the Coordinating Council of the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Electricity, held in the northern province of Niassa, "to end the problem, the government is adopting measures in order to ease the licensing process and tax collection for the State.'

Illegal mining, he explained, causes lethal accidents during the extraction and use of mercury for gold processing.

The use of mercury, he added, "contributes to environmental pollution, especially the pollution of rivers'.

Work is being carried out, Rangeiro said, to identify organized mining associations in order to turn them into cooperatives.

According to research undertaken by the Ministry and by the National Statistics Institute (INE) in 2021, the country has 2,162 zones of artisanal mining. 1,577 of these zones, or 72.9 per cent of the total, are active.

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