Traditional Mining: Poverty Alleviation vs. Environment Pollution
13 August, 2014By: Alawia al-Khalifa
KHARTOUM (Sudanow.info.sd)— The traditional mining in the Sudan is an important practice dating back thousands of years to the Merowe and other Nubian kingdoms while historic sources indicate that the gold prospection was among the motives of the colonialist campaigns and ambitions by the British and Egyptians on Sudan.
Historically, the gold mining has been practiced since the era of the Nubian kingdoms in the third century BC. This activity was in practice throughout Napta and Kush kingdoms and in east Sudan by the Bijah tribes and Arab and Nubian immigrants. This activity continued till the campaign that was made by Mohamed Ali Pasha in search for gold in Bene Shangoul Mountains and other regions in Atmour Desert and west Red Sea mountains.
Modern instruments were introduced to Sudan in 1965 by foreign and national companies. At that time, among the important known mines were Um Tabary in the River Nile State and Abu Dweim and Jebeit Al-Ma’adin in the Red Sea State but stopped operation as a result of a decrease in gold prices. But the gold mining flourished in the past years becoming one of the other traditional activities, though this traditional mining was accompanied by a number of environmental, economic and security difficulties. It has become a leading commercial activity attracting many Sudanese nationals of various regions, tribes and local languages in an active gold scramble away from control by the government and other concerned authorities and in ignorance of the entailed risks.
The miners active in the traditional mining are estimated at about a million in addition to accompanying marginal jobs and services, a situation which resulted in the rise of new and odd behavior alien to the local communities. Moreover, this phenomenon had remarkable economic, environmental and security impacts which reflect directly or indirectly on the local communities, particularly the passive effects resulting from the unwise use of chemicals ( mercury and cyanide) in the mining operations as those substances flow in the valleys, water-streams and ground-water, directly affecting both people and animals.
There are more than 81 sites producing more than 90% of gold in the Sudan. The traditional mining absorbs about 5 million miners and other workers of accompanying jobs while those affected by this activity are estimate at 11 million people. This situation was a result of the economic crisis that followed the secession of South Sudan and loss of the petroleum proceeds which brought in 50% of the national income.
The State’s gold policy focuses on economic exploitation of the mineral resources for boarding the national income base and diversifying the exports in the context of the overall national strategic plan and the three-year economic reform programme. Gold has been counted since 2012 as part of the important economic resources and the central Bank of Sudan was designated as a gold purchaser with a target of buying 50 tons of gold. This target was reached as the Bank managed to purchase 34,700 tons in 2012 and 22 tons in 2013. People rushed scrambling for gold for rapid wealth hoarding. This scramble yielded adverse symptoms threatening the system of the community.
All of these reasons drove the Ministry of Minerals into seeking efforts from organization related to traditional mining (prospection, development, production) in a traditional mining conference that was recently held in Khartoum’s Friendship Hall under the auspices of First Vice President Bakry Hassan Salih for reaching a unified vision that would legalize the native (traditional) mining ad minimize the adverse effects and environmental pollution by the mining residues.
FVP Salih stressed the importance of coordination between the center and the states for confronting the challenges and overcoming the negative effects of the native mining and for reaching the aspired goals of this mining to enable it to effectively contribute to the development of the national economy. He instructed the Ministry of Minerals to persuade the works of this sector to push the production wheel forward. General Salih pledged commitment to carrying out the recommendations of conference, especially as the State places economic issue within its development priorities. He indicated the importance of the mining sector for the positive role it plays in the nation-building, granting it an advantage of the other sectors.
He pointed out the role played by the native mining in alleviating poverty and curbing unemployment by absorbing large numbers of the youth, particularly in the villages and countryside, positively reflecting on the standard of living of their families.
Dr. Ahmed Mohamed Sadek al-Karoury, the Minister of Minerals, commended the positive role of the mining sector and its contribution to the consolidation and development of the national economy in addition to providing job opportunities for more than a million workers and for its contribution by producing 90% of the Sudanese gold by spreading out in all of the Sudanese states.
The Minister called rallying efforts of all relevant institutions behind the Ministry of Mining for dealing with the traditional mining challenges, especially after involvement of international companies in investment in the field of mining. He acknowledged that the mining laws are poor, indicating that the mining sector, though large, is out of control of the State and does not fall under the laws and has not been placed within the resources of the State. The localities impose on miners fees from which the center gets nothing. He called for finding rules for possession and importation of mercury to check its erroneous application. The Minister admitted absence of control by the State over the mining regions, a situation that leads to eruption of disputes between the miners and the companies.
Karoury also admitted to increasing gold smuggling operations, due to its high prices in the international markets, and to absence of the proceeds of the traditional mining production among the revenues of the national budget and, moreover, to non-entrance of the gold products in the formal channels due to the stockpiling and smuggling. This led to an active movement of cash away from the banking system, he said pointing to an improper utilization of the mining proceeds in a well-studied scientific way, causing a loss by the State of its mineral resources. The Minister said the use of mercury in the extraction operations causes the loss of 75% of the gold as residues. He said the traditional gold mining makes the country lose its invaluable human resources to diseases and school dropouts, conceding to the traditional mining tremendous negative effects on the country’s national economy and human resources. There are increasingly remarkable school dropouts as children of school age leave for work in the gold mines, said Dr. Karoury, indicating creation of undisciplined communities where crime thrives and which provide a safe haven for criminals in addition to transgression of the archeological sites.
Dr. Karoury said some tribes claim ownership of the lands and their right to benefit from their resources in conventional ways, a situation that causes friction between those tribes and the companies which hold government licenses, in addition to frictions among the traditional miners themselves. He admitted to absence of legislations, contracts or formulae that regulate the employer-employee relationship which depends on mutual trust and norms that prevail in the concerned regions. The Minister said the overlapping and non-demarcation of the borders between the states and the localities lead to conflicting administrative decisions made by those authorities as each state and locality seek to impose high fees on the miners. He added that the mining activity is carried out in regions which are lacking in the basic infrastructures as well as the security services because they are not inhabited and do not have roads or communication networks linking them together. 
The Minister of State in the Ministry of Minerals, Siraj al-Dinn Hamid revealed that 18 tons of gold were extracted during the first quarter of this year, a quantity of which the Bank of Sudan purchased 10 tons.
Dr. Rashid Ahmed Mohamed Hussein, the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Minerals has remarked that the traditional mining has become a reality of a positive impact on the Sudanese society, particularly with regard to improving the standards of living and curbing unemployment in the villages and countryside. He said that all institutions related to the traditional mining in the capital city and the states took part in the conference. Hussein said there are more than 600 gold mining sites spread out in all parts of the Sudan.
Geologist Rugayah Hassan badur discussed in a paper she presented to the conference the social impact of the traditional mining, concentrating on the child labor which is regarded by the international laws as a crime in view of its risks on the child health due to the hard labor in the mining regions. She named the River Nile State as the top of the states in the child labor, according to information provided by the National Council for Child Welfare. The Geologist pointed out that the child labor threatens the stability of education as hundreds of children leave the schools. She also cited the adverse impact inflicted by mining on agriculture and livestock breeding as this practice has attracted numerous shepherds and farmers in addition to transgression of the natural pastures in Butanah and other regions by the gold miners. Badur made reference to a report saying that the Butanah pastures were distributed to 16 mining companies. She did not miss the risks the traditional miner faces as regards health and environmental pollution of air, and water sources, the damage of the soil, vegetation and forests in addition to the vocational risks to the workers in areas where he is not qualified to work and where the simplest safety precautions are absent.
The importance of the traditional mining arises from the fact that it brings about tremendous financial proceeds as the gold production is a real diversion and an added value to the economy. Gold counted for 69.3% of the non-petroleum exports, earning 2.15 billion dollars in 2012. The traditional mining, especially gold, began to remarkably contribute to the export proceeds, a matter which in turn contributed to the rate of exchange stability. The Bank of Sudan purchased quantities of gold and exported it for earning foreign currencies to meet the country’s needs.
Dr. Yusuf al-Sammany, Director-General of the Sudan Geological Research Corporation, revealed a plan by the Ministry of Minerals aimed at developing and legalizing the traditional mining. The plan provides for dispatching in the upcoming period teams of geologists to the mining sites in the various states of the country for counting the miners and viewing the positive and negative effects on the host regions for the objective of establishing a database on gold resources in the Sudan.
Dr. Sammany said the Ministry works, in coordination with the states and localities as well as the concerned federal ministries like the ministries of Health and Environment, for minimizing the negative impact of the traditional mining and for raising awareness by the miners of the risks of using mercury and casual drilling of mine pits in order to protect the surface water and the flora and fauna of the region from pollution.
He added that the Ministry exerts tremendous efforts searching for mercury alternatives, referring to a recent visit by a delegation of the Ministry to Brazil to view a research by the Science and Technology Institute on mercury alternatives to benefit from in the traditional mining operations in Sudan.
Dr. Sammany said, as a way of addressing the mercury problem, the Ministry granted licenses to about 20 companies to work on the traditional mining residues as it turned out that only 30% of the gold is extracted and the remaining 70% are lost as mining residues. Each miner will be issued a card to be distributed in the mining sites, while the alien miners will be expelled from those sites, as a special police unit has been established under the Presidential decision for the purpose, Sammany added.
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