About 50,000 artisanal miners in the Mubende District now know they have carry out their activities elsewhere following President Yoweri Museveni’s directive that they vacate an area which Government licensed to investors to start gold exploration.
In a letter dated June 28, 2017 addressed to Members of Parliament from the district, President Museveni directed that those who forced themselves into the areas where the investor had made excavations must leave with immediate effect.
“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 hailing from the gold-rich district, despite a petition from the miners, seeking to be given a grace period of one year to conclude their activities. Gemstone is the company that wants to start gold mining activities.
Meanwhile, prior to President Museveni’s latest decision to evict the artisans, there had been back and forth negotiations between the artisanal miners, local leaders, investors and key officials from the central government.
The Mubende District Woman Member of Parliament Benny Bugembe Namugwanya confirmed that area MPs authored a petition to the President on June 16, 2017, requesting him to give artisanal miners more time before being evicted.
The leaders also want government to grant location licenses to the artisanal miners who reportedly applied for them early last year in the Directorate of Geological Survey and Mines.
“I agree to give ample time to the artisans in Mubende. That is no problem. The bigger issue is to keep in mind what we talked about in the meeting,” the President said in his one-page letter.
“The ample time we talked about should be in portions that are away from where the investor had gone to work” Museveni added.
The President’s letter is copied to the Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi, the Prime Minister Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Gen Kale Kayihura, the Chief of Defence Forces Gen David Muhoozi, the Defence and Veteran affairs minister Adolf Mwesige and Irene Muloni, the Energy and Mineral Development Minister.
However the Bukuya County Member of parliament Dr Michael Bukenya claimed that the Presidential directive seems to be contrary to the President’s stand on artisanal miners which he stated in the 2016 presidential campaigns and the 2017 state of the nation address.
“The president acknowledged artisanal miners and promised that Government would grant them licenses”, says Mr Bukenya. “Instead of Government making steps to regularize the artisanal miners by granting them location licensees, artisanal miners are being threatened with eviction,” Bukenya adds.
He says artisanal mining in his constituency has stimulated economic growth, increased the local purchasing power, prevented rural-urban migration and created employment for thousands of people.
Bukenya says local leaders are seeking audience with the president, security agencies and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development to discuss if the president’s eviction order can be halted as artisans prepare to leave the contested gold-rich areas.
In a related development, Mr Ivan Kauma Male, a project coordinator of the Singo Artisanal and Small scale Miners Association (SASMA), said they are shocked by the President’s directive.
“We are in shock that the President can approve the eviction without him coming down to hear our side of the story,” Mr Male said, adding that it is unfair for government to evict thousands of artisanal miners, who he said, are contributing to Uganda’s national development.
