Mining firm dismisses taskforce findings

By Macharia  Kamau

Kenya: Cortec Mining Kenya has hit out at a Ministry of Mining taskforce set up to vet all mining licences issued earlier this year.

The firm, majority owned by Canadian company Pacific Wildcat Resources, dismissed the findings of the taskforce.

It said the report had many factual inaccuracies and that the taskforce itself was just a move by Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala to sanitise his action of revoking mining licences.

Early August Balala revoked all licences issued between January and May, arguing that it was a transition period and ministries could not make such major decisions without substantive ministers in place.

Revoked licences

He further set up a taskforce to look into the process of issuing the revoked licences. The taskforce, chaired by prominent lawyer Mohamed Nyaoga, found out that many of the licences issued over the five-month period were issued irregularly and recommended the cancellation of some of them, including one held by Cortec.

 “It is the view of CMK the task force was set up to help justify the actions of the Cabinet Secretary’s purported revocation of a number of mining and prospecting licences,” said David Anderson Managing Director Cortec Mining.

The Interim Report of the Ministerial Task Force on Review of Prospecting, Exploration and Mining Licences and Agreements was handed over to the Cabinet Secretary Friday.

The report found that many of the firms did not follow laid down procedure while others did not have capacity to undertake actual mining works and were just holding the licences for speculative purposes.