Illegal miners in Mubende District are running away from the mining areas following a government exercise of registration of local miners.
Gold artisanal and small scale gold miners in Mubende are now going through registration to sieve out illegal and foreign miners.
The Minister of State of Energy for Mineral Development Peter Lokeris together with Permanent Secretary in the ministry of Energy and Mineral Development Dr. Stephen Robert Isabalija confirmed the registration of miners in Mubende while appearing before the parliamentary committee on Natural Resources.
The committee chaired by Isingiro South MP Alex Byarugaba had asked the Ministry of Energy officials to explain failure to certify most of Uganda minerals and to generate more revenues through giving licenses.
Minister Peter Lokeris said that the registration exercise will be taken across the country to all mining areas.
In a letter dated June 28th 2017 addressed to Members of Parliament from Mubende district, President Museveni directed that those who invaded where the investor had made excavations must straight away get out.
“The investor is there to help us to know whether there is gold and, if so, how much of it. Why should anybody interfere with this?” President Museveni wrote to law makers from the gold-rich district.
“We are in shock that the President can approve the eviction without him coming down to hear our side of the story” says Mr Ivan Kauma Male, a project coordinator of the Singo Artisanal and Small scale miners Association (SASMA).
The President compared the minerals to a family banana plantation where by children of the family or any other family members do not cut immature bananas. Even where the bananas mature, it is the head of the family in this case Government, to determine how much bunches should be cut by whom and when.
