Govt urged to include sand mining in extractive and mining industry

The Government needs to include sand mining in the extractive and mining industry laws to safeguard people’s interest, says a conservationist.
Wenceslaus Magun said while there were many loopholes in the existing laws, the Government needed to include sand mining in the reviewed Mining Act 1992.
“Mineral Resources Authority must make a provision within this Act to have a policy or regulatory and legislative framework to guide the operations of sand mining,” he said.
“Because of the lack regulatory framework, there are no monitoring and assessment of environmental and social impacts of sand mining in the country.
“The policies, laws and management guidelines would tell us what kind of benefits the different stakeholders would get.
“You cannot just say this is under the Mining Act because that’s too broad, sand is an exclusive mineral, separate from gold, copper and silver and must be identified as that.
“It is a surface mineral unlike the others that have to be dug up and the Mining Act says that anything above six feet is for the people, loopholes like this must be addressed to ensure proper benefit to all.”