Senate : Senators Receive Proposed Mining Code

The bill relating to the Mining Code of Cameroon has been tabled at the Senate. The document was tabled during a plenary sitting Chaired by the Senate President, Marcel Niat Njifenji. The legal instrument was judged admissible during a Chairman’s Conference equally chaired by the Senate President prior to the plenary sitting. The bill was yesterday November 23 defended before the Senate’s Committee on Production and Trade by the interim Minister of Mines, Industry and Technological Development, Prof. Fuh Calistus Gentry. 
According to the explanatory notes of the document, it lays down the overall legal framework and basic guidelines for Cameroon’s mining sector. That is, it governs the reconnaissance, exploration, mining, possession, transportation, processing and marketing of mineral substances. The bill is equally an outcome of a critical review of the December 14, 2016 law to establish the mining code. Containing 24 major innovations, the proposed Mining Code seeks to remedy the shortcomings of the law and incorporate the attractiveness, competitiveness and financial profitability concerns that can help to fast-track the implementation of transformational mining projects, and increase the solid minerals sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product. The legal instrument duly authorises SONAMINES as the public body with exclusive powers to purchase and market gold and diamond nationwide. The document which is a logical follow-up of the policy speech of the Head of State in his address to the nation on December 31, 2022 on diversifying the State’s sources of revenue, envisages increasing the contribution of the non-oil mining sector to GDP. 
The bill targets improving and reinforcing mechanisms for disseminating...