Mubende gold miners cash in amidst destruction

She is among the estimated 50,000 people from all walks of life that have thronged the remote hilly areas of Kitumbi and Bukuya Sub counties, Mubende District, about 172 kilometres west of Kampala, in search of gold.

When she heard of gold prospects in the area, Ms Nantale, who was a peasant farmer in Dingo village, Mubende, abandoned cultivation in February 2013 and moved about 4 kilometres to engage in gold extraction.

She says her adventure has paid off. “We have bought a tipper truck at Shs 33 million and a 17-acre piece of land in Bugangaizi East (Kakumiro District) where our family intends to set up a dairy farm,” she says.

Each of the thousands of people searching for a fortune in gold has a different story to tell on how the business has impacted them.

Congested settlements built haphazardly characterise Kampala, Mukapya, Mukikade, Mukabada, Ewalukwago, Lubaali and Kamusenene gold mines.
The temporary structures are built with white and blue tarpaulins. A handful of permanent structures have been built in recent months.

The miners have hired contractors who have graded for them roads leading to the gold sites and supply thermal power at Shs 20,000 for each business unit per day.

“Majority of the structures are temporary because we operate under uncertainty,” says Ivan Mr Kawuma Male, the project coordinator Singo Artisanal and Small scale Miners Association (SASMA).
The miners are operating without licenses, permits or agreements from the government which regulates the mining industry.
They live in fear that the government may sooner or later evict them.
“Our biggest problem is (lack of) a license. We can operate smoothly if we are legalized,” Male, a university graduate, says.
If the artisanal miners secure a license, argues Mr Male, who with two other graduates mobilized miners into an association, it can be easy to attract investors who can set up schools, hospitals and other social services in the area.
Access to water, medication, education and other social services is a challenge in the gold-rich area that has fertile soils in the low lands.
The Sub County collects market dues while the district collects hawkers’ license fees from businesses operating in the mines. However, the district and Sub County authorities do not collect any other taxes from the gold trade.
The mines are located about 10 kilometres from Bukuya health centre III, the nearest health facility to them. The nearest school is Nazareth Primary School, which is about four kilometres from the mines.
Environmental challenges

Mining has degraded the environment in the area, the Kitumbi Sub county community Development Officer (CDO), Mr Edward Ssenkusu, observes.
The miners have contaminated water sources with mercury and cyanide, he adds.
Mercury and cyanide, some of the heavy metals that are harmful to humans and animals are used by miners to separate gold from soil and other impurities.
Although Uganda signed the Minamata Convention on Mercury in 2013, which aims to curb use of mercury in mining operations, Uganda has not operationalised its provisions.

The miners dispose domestic and human waste in the open due to lack of adequate waste management facilities.

Kampala mine, for example, has three public toilets but accessing them costs between Shs 300 to 500.

The rocky hills have been excavated by miners who have dug hundreds of underground tunnels in search of gold deposits. They use hoes, axes, hammers while others have bought generator-powered demolition hammers for drilling rocks.

The ores are scooped from underground to the surface where they are dried, cleaned of impurities before they are mixed with water and mercury or cyanide, heavy metals that attract gold particles.

The particles are later heated to solidify into gold that is weighed by digital scales before being purchased by readily available buyers who keep hard cash in sacks. A gram of gold is sold between Shs 100,000 to Shs 125,000.

If they are legalized, Mr Ssenkusu says, they will improve on their working methods because they will know that their business is sustainable.
“Currently, the destruction is because they know that they may be forced to leave anytime,” Mr Ssenkusu, a member of Kitumbi-Kayonza miners Association Ltd, says. The association has been extracting and trading gold in Lubaali mines since 2012.

According to Mr Ssenkusu, the association negotiated and got two location licenses covering 80 acres from Gemstone International Ltd, a Ugandan firm with a gold exploration license covering over 207 square kilometres in the area.

The two-year location license, which the association obtained in 2014, expired last year and has since been renewed for two more years.
He claimed that the Association sells its gold to Bank of Uganda, which he said deducts all the required taxes.

Unregulated gold mining here means activities have been done without or minimal supervision, which has left human rights abuses unattended to, says Ms Winnie Ngabiirwe, the executive director of Global Rights Alert (GRA), an advocacy NGO.

She says child labour and exploitation of miners, who operate without safety gear, has persisted in the gold mining areas because the major drive of investors in the area is profit without any regard to human rights standards.

The gold-rich sub counties of Kitumbi and Bukuya run an annual budget ranging from Shs 30 to 50 million per year, says the Mubende Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Charles Kiberu Nsubuga.

He says the gold industry has attracted a cocktail of businesses which include transportation, bars, general merchandise, hotels, prostitution, among others.
“The government has recognized that even if you teargas those people they cannot leave easily,” says Mr Nsubuga. He says before efforts are underway to legalise them.

Registration has been ongoing to identify who are operating there and organise them into Associations to enable government monitor their activities and collect the required payments, said the Mubende Chief accounting officer.

“The nation is losing revenue because the gold is not declared to Government,” Mr Nsubuga added.

He said the district which operates an annual budget of Shs 34 billion recently got Shs 4m from the national treasury as royalties from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development.

The district has not directly got much revenue from the gold industry, Mr Nsubuga argues, with much of the money going into the pockets of individual miners.

Despite its shortcomings, Mr Nsubuga argues, the industry has a huge potential of escalating Mubende’s social-economic development, if it is regulated.
The district is already grappling with the negative social and environmental effects of the industry. Dead bodies of emigrant miners are often dumped at
Bukuya or Kassanda health centres at night and many unclaimed bodies have been buried at cemeteries, Mr Nsubuga said.
Many attracted to the area

At the mines are immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and other parts of the world. Many do not want their identities disclosed.

“I am here struggling to get money but do not disclose my identity because I told my family that I had flown abroad for Kyeyo,” a man told this newspaper.
Ms Rose Namate, 36, who was a housewife, left her family in Luweero district to try her luck in the mines.

“Much as I earn over Shs 2 million per month, mercury affects me. I feel intense pains in my eyes and in legs but I have nothing to do. I have to look for money,” says Ms Namate, a mother of six who has spent three years working in the mines.

She buys basins of rock particles believed to have gold deposits and sieves them before mixing in water and mercury to separate gold from impurities.
She hopes to quit the business and set up a super market in her home area after accumulating capital of Shs 15 million.

Case for unlicensed miners

Mr Richard Kaijuka, the vice chairperson Uganda chamber of mines and petroleum, argues that artisanal miners can operate alongside the licensed companies.
He notes, however, that they need to be well organized and regulated “so that they don’t interfere with the work of licensed companies.” Mr Kaijuka also chairs the Africa gold refinery.
The refinery, worth over $15 million, is located near Entebbe Airport and has capacity to process 200 Kilograms of gold and other precious metals per day.
According to Mr Kaijuka, the refined products will include gold bars with purity of 99.9%, small minted bars and granulates.
He says all the refined gold at the facility will have Uganda’s “certificate of Origin”.

Matters of law

The government passed the Mining Policy in 2001, the Mining Act in 2003 and Mining regulations in 2004.
The December 2015 Auditor general’s report on Regulation, Monitoring and promotion of the Mining sector noted that commercialised building materials and artisanal and small scale mining operations produced over 90% of the national mineral output and about 200,000 Ugandans employed remain informal and unregulated.

Whereas the number of issued mining licencees increased from 157 in 2002 to 818 (192%) in 2015, the inspection and monitoring coverage geared towards enforcing compliance with the prescribed conditions and the regulatory framework remained low at only 4%, according to the Auditor general.

“Most of the country’s mineral endowments remain unexploited and the sector’s contribution to GDP remains low at 0.3%”the report stated.
The report added that the Directorate of Geological Survey and Mines(DGSM) has not been effective in administering the mining industry as issues of ASM, commercialized building materials, environmental, health and safety standards, remain inadequately addressed.
Under Section 98(1) and Section 103 of the Mining Act, royalties shall be paid on all minerals obtained or mined in the course of prospecting, exploration, mining or in the process of improving the grade or quality of mineral ores.
Section 70 of the Mining Regulations, 2004 requires all mineral rights holders, except prospecting licenses, to pay mineral rents upon grant of a license and thereafter on every anniversary.
“It was observed that Non-Tax Revenue (NTR) outstanding as at 30th September 2015 totaled to Shs 4.4 billion and this amount related to the period July 2011 to September 2015”the report stated.
Although the Mining Act 2003 provided for a penalty to be charged on unpaid royalties, and also for the Commissioner to prohibit any mineral right holders with unpaid royalties from disposal of minerals exploited from the sites for which they have a license, there was no evidence to show that penalties had been charged or that the Commissioner had taken necessary steps including follow ups to recover the unpaid NTR.
In response to the report, DGSM officials said the Ministry will establish a desk in Uganda Revenue Authority and use electronic system for quick reconciliation of mineral revenue. Previously, the Ministry has been using Manual based system.
In the meantime, Energy Minister Irene Muloni says the proposed mining policy, which is before cabinet provides for regulation of artisanal and small scale miners.
“This will prevent losses which government has been incurring from unregulated mining. The policy will also address conflicts in the mining sector, competing land uses and environmental concerns,” Muloni said.

The same policy should also ensure that Ms Namate and other artisanal miners are protected from mercury and other dangers as they go for gold.

This article was done with facilitation from the African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME).