Natural Resources Justice Network has expressed concern over what it calls prevailing gaps in the mining sector.
The organisation claims that the mining sector has, for years, operated without meaningful audits or oversight, rendering the country vulnerable to illicit financial flows and mineral smuggling.
Natural Resources Justice Network National Coordinator Kennedy Rashid said in an interview on Times Television yesterday that the sector was riddled with governance gaps that continued to cost the country.
Rashid said Malawi had yet to put in place strategic measures to combat illicit financial flows and mineral smuggling, attributing the problem largely to weak regulatory and law enforcement mechanisms at the community level.
“The mining sector has been surviving without any audit or any oversight for such a long time. A lot has happened without proper audits and proper oversight. We are still getting there,” Rashid said.
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He called for the establishment of coordinated oversight mechanisms spanning community, district and national levels, saying, in Malawi laws, minerals belonged to all citizens.
On value addition, Rashid said the country urgently needed to build its capacity to process and beneficiate minerals domestically, rather than exporting raw stones.
This comes as a nationwide Mineral Licence Compliance Audit covering 2020 to 2025 found that 113 exploration licence holders and a further 113 medium-scale mining licence holders had failed to pay ground rent, accumulating arrears of at least K413.6 million.
A total of 1,044 holders of small-scale mining, reconnaissance and non-exclusive prospecting licences had not paid mineral royalties at all, a finding confirmed by the Malawi Revenue Authority.
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All 424 active small-scale mining licence holders had not submitted mandatory semi-annual reports, as had all 518 reconnaissance licence holders and all 102 non-exclusive prospecting licence holders.
A further 96 medium-scale mining licence holders had not filed required monthly statements of operations while 157 exploration licence holders had outstanding progress reports, with 311 individual reports overdue.
Mining and Minerals Regulatory Authority Director General Mphatso Chikoti said the authority had granted non-compliant licence holders a 30- day window to come forward.
