By Chernor Alimamy Kamara
The Ministry of Mines and Mineral Resources through the National Revenue Authority (NRA) and the National Mineral Agency (NMA) has generated $ 27,510 (twenty-seven million, five hundred and ten thousand United States Dollars) as revenue collected from January to August 2023.
The revenue generated came from licenses, royalties, and other mining returns. The ministry is projected to generate about 32 million dollars in 2024.
The Mines ministry was part of several Ministries, Departments, and Agencies that presented their annual budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 at the Ministry of Finance, Freetown on the 20th of October 2023.
In her presentation, the Permanent Secretary at the Mines Ministry, Nancy K.S Tengbeh stated that some of the achievements made by the ministry in 2023 were attracting additional Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the mineral sector in Sierra Leone and increasing investment by five mining companies, with an overall investment projection of 500 Million United States Dollars. He said a total of 18 large-scale mining companies now operate in the country.
Job creation in the mining sector increased from 13,000 (thirteen thousand) in 2022 to 14,000 (fourteen thousand) in 2023 including contract services given to over 50 Sierra Leonean businesses.
He said that they have scaled up Monitoring and Evaluation through NMA to reduce illicit mining activities and have strengthened cooperation with Development partners like GIZ to monitor the borders with Liberia and Guinea against the smuggling of minerals.
The Permanent Secretary also said that they have enforced the signing of a Community Development Agreement by Large-Scale Mining Companies and allocated revenue from production sales to the Community Development Fund. She said they have also developed a policy brief on reducing gold export tax from 3% to 1% and for all mining companies to comply with the local content policy.
She said one of the ministry’s strategic plans for 2024 is to coordinate and oversee the efficient and effective day-to-day operations of the ministry to fulfill its mandate. She added that they will implement an effective monitoring of mining activities nationwide.
Tengbeh then submitted a budget estimate of 9,000,000 (nine million New Leones) to be disbursed to the ministry for FY 2024.’
In response to the budget presented by the Mines Ministry, the Deputy Minister of Finance II, Bockarie Kalokoh suggested that the Mines Ministry utilizes at least 1% of revenue generated as self-funding, owing to the fact that finances are not coming on time. He also recommended that they submit a policy paper wherein 2% of their revenue collected will be transferred to the ministry’s recurrent budget.
The presentation ended with non-state Actors, Civil Society representatives, and representatives from various District Budget Committees moving a motion for adoption of the mines ministry’s budget.
The Ministry of Mines and Mineral Resources is responsible for governing, managing formulating policies and plans for the development and management of Sierra Leone’s mineral sector.
Copyright © 2023 Politico (20/10/23)
