Ministry of Energy and Minerals.
The ministry’s engineer Nuru Shabani made the remark at a seminar
on ‘applying for mining licenses online’ (online cadastre) attended by
miners and stakeholders in Dodoma.
There were challenges in paperwork application such as the long process it takes and accessing the licenses.
Others are poor care of mining plots, existence of disputes among
stakeholders and failure to keep records, causing immense loss of
revenue.
The government has decided to introduce mining license application
system through online to control loss of revenue and increase investors
in the sector, given available technological advancement in the country,
he said.
“This system will be carried legally and will be connected to all
mining offices to manage conflicts and have proper mining license
applications statistics,” he said.
Shabani said they started testing the system last year and that it
would start operating officially this month at all mining offices.
He said: “We have told our officers never to receive any paperwork
applications…we have instructed them that all applications must be done
online.”
The measures would increase transparency in operations, clients
managing their license, eliminating bureaucracy and controlling
corruption because payments will be made online directly.”
He said the system has helped increase license application whereby
80,593 were received from small scale miners between 2014 and this year
compared to the previous year’s 2,600.
He said a total 18,502 applications were submitted compared to
2,800 paperwork applications which were submitted in the fiscal year
2014/2015.
For extraction licenses, a total of 683 applications were presented
using online system compared to 300 paperwork applications in the same
financial year 2014/2015.
He said through online system already 6300 exploration licenses,
40,000 small scale mining licenses and 263 extraction licenses have been
issued.
Earlier opening the seminar on behalf of the Resident Mines Officer
geologist Affa Edward said the seminar aimed at raising awareness on
stakeholders in the sector to start online applications.
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