Miners and traders have turned the heat on newly appointed Mining and Blue Economy Cabinet Secretary Hassan Ali Joho to disclose the findings of a multibillion-shilling geophysical survey on Kenya’s mineral deposits conducted by the National Intelligence Service(NIS) to help spur investments in the sector.
An industry lobby, the Kenya Chamber of Mines, said that the withheld data would help big-ticket investors assess the viability of their investments in the country.
NIS was in 2018 tapped by former President Uhuru Kenyatta to map the country’s mineral wealth deposits amid fears that a foreign private firm could use the sensitive data for their own benefit.
“This information has never been shared with industry (and citizens) and this not only causes jitters and mistrust in the sector but deters investments,” Patrick Kanyoro, the Chamber’s chairman, said.
“We trust the new CS will find it important to share the information as per the Access to Information Act.”
The study on the country’s underground mineral wealth was commissioned as part of strategy to attract foreign investors based on the resultant empirical data.
Although mining activity has been present in the country for over 50 years, productivity has remained low, with a scale of operations limited to soda ash, mineral sands and from 2013 Titanium ores in Kwale which has now been depleted.
The country is, however, believed to hold deposits of other minerals such as copper, niobium, gold, manganese, and rare earth minerals which largely remain under-exploited, dwarfing the mining sector’s contribution to the national economic output.
Kenya's largely untapped mining sector is estimated to have the potential to earn the country $6.6 billion (about Sh977 billion), or 10 percent of GDP.
For years, the sector’s contribution to GDP — a measure of national economic output — has stagnated, hovering between 0.7 and 0.9 percent in five years through 2023.
Former Mining CS Salim Mvurya, who has been moved to the Investments and Trade docket, said the NIS-led survey provided data on mineral occurrences or indications of 970 mineral deposits countrywide.
The Ruto administration October last year lifted the December 2019 moratorium that had stopped issuing of prospecting licences pending the findings of the NIS-led study.
The outgoing minister estimates projects approved since the country re-opened the licencing processes and operationalised the online mining cadastre will unlock about Sh221 billion in investments.
“The new CS [Mr Joho] has an opportunity that the four previous holders of the office missed! Mining is a sector that is capital intensive and hence requires predictably on matters policy,” Dr Kanyoro said. “There is a wealth of knowledge and experience that once accorded the appropriate leadership, Kenyans stand a great chance to leverage Kenya's mineral wealth for a better quality of life” he added.
The lifting of the ban on mineral prospecting opened the door for investors to resume prospecting on all construction and industrial minerals such as limestone, gypsum, and diatomite.
Prospecting and exploration of strategic minerals such as uranium and cobalt are, however, being approved on a case-by-case basis guided by Mining (Strategic Minerals) Regulations, 2017.
