Kenya has just announced a coltan mineral discovery. The Cabinet Secretary for Mining and Blue Economy Salim Mvurya announced the discovery from Embu on Wednesday 24 January.
Apart from Embu, the CS said significant amounts of coltan can be found in five other counties, putting Kenya in the race for coltan mining.
Coltan discovery in Kenya – What is Coltan?
Coltan is a rare metallic mineral majorly used in the manufacture of electronic products around the globe. Without it, you would probably not have laptops, mobile phones, game consoles, TVs, among other products.
Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the world’s largest producers of coltan, with the mineral being termed a ‘conflict mineral’.
Activists have usually blamed large corporations such as Apple and Tesla of abetting conflict and child labour by not being keen about how the coltan and other minerals they use in production of expensive smartphones and car batteries are obtained.
The announcement by Kenya should excite investors as the East African economic giant is keen to make a giant leap in mineral mining.
“So far, 970 mineral occurrences have been noted across the country. More workers will be employed in the exploration of the minerals and laboratories will be decentralised to county level to fast-track testing of minerals” Salim Mvurya, Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Mining and Blue Economy.
Kenya is already assembling affordable smartphones and the coltan discovery will be a huge boost for the nascent electronics manufacturing industry. Kenya already leads Africa in matters ICT with some of the most successful startups.
Coltan mining in Kenya
While the government is yet to ascertain the economic viability of the discovery, there are already control measures in motion for coltan mining.
According to the CS, a special unit was approved by the cabinet to weed out illegal miners and those who do not comply with the law.
The plan is also to have 20 percent of all mining proceeds to go to the mother counties while 10 percent go to the locals. It is not clear how this will be enforced though.
While the announcement may excite investors, it may not elicit as much enthusiasm in the locals as much because as they say great expectations make frustrated people. Kenya announced a ‘great discovery of oil’ in Turkana in 2012. The expectation of having the country join the list of major oil exporters died slowly in the subsequent years as the oil has never been commercialized.
There is very little information on what exactly is going on with the oil, and the company that discovered it, Tullow Oil, once running into financial troubles. Fel prices remain high in Kenya as the country continues to import the commodity.
