BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
Mining companies have an obligation to rehabilitate the environment from damages under the mining agreement.
Minister for Mines, Energy, and Rural Electrification, Derrick Manuari highlighted this when responding to Opposition Leader, Matthew Wale about the non-payment of the environmental bond in Rennbell Bauxite mining issue.
Wale described the Rennbell issue as a terrible state of affairs and negligence of the worst kind given the fact that both companies and the contractor are no longer registered and in the country.
“In the case of the Renbel, where the environmental degradation and destruction is very large and obvious, who picks up that liability? Who will meet that? I’m not sure what the legal status is of that company,” Wale questioned.
In response, Manuari said that despite the non-payment of the environmental bond under the mining agreement, there is an obligation for the company to rehabilitate the environment from damages.
“That obligation is a legal requirement for the companies to do. Under Part 3, Section 2 of the financial assurances, under the current reforms, under the new Minerals Act it require companies to make a bond payment to the government when incur environmental damages. That money will be there for environmental rehabilitation,” he said.
He also noted that with the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry, a lot of these issues about the Renbel issue will be answered.
“Their liquidation only added up to the challenges that are supposed to us, as a government, people, and as a country on what the gaps are within the sector where, as we go along, we must find ways to ensure that that doesn’t happen again. The legislative framework, the legal framework that we are working on, have a lot of gaps.
“If we don’t patch them up, we’ll continue to face challenges like this. We all learn from the experiences that we meet as a country, a government, as people through these various operations. The best we can do is to identify, through the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry, but also ongoing legislative reforms to fill out those gaps,” Manuari said.
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