Zambia has started revoking the more than 600 mining licences for the mines which have remained dormant for some time.
Mines and Mineral Development Minister Christopher Yaluma recently announced that Government would repossess dormant mining licences and give them to serious investors.
Currently there were more than 600 mining licences in the country whose owners were not utilising them.
Permanent Secretary Paul Chanda said in an interview that Government was now cancelling mining licences that have remained inactive.
Mr Chanda said there were a number of small-scale and large-scale miners that were not utilising their mining licenses.
He said that Government had given the miners a 90-day notice for revocation and automatically cancelling licences that had not been renewed.
“We are currently cancelling mining licences that have been dormant and those that have not been renewed. This process will be ongoing, we want to issue the licences to serious investors who will utilise them,” he said.
Mr Chanda said with the introduction of an online licence system, it was easy to monitor mining activities.
He said the online electronic licence system was also automatically cancelling licences which were not utilised and renewed.
Mr Chanda said it was sad that some firms and individuals had kept mining licences without even going further to do simple drilling.
He said there were a number of foreign firms from Australia and the United Kingdom(UK) which were interested in putting up mining projects in areas that were already licensed.
Mr Chanda said the Government would issue the mining licences it would repossess to serious investors who have registered companies.
He urged firms and companies that had valid mining licences to start utilising them before they are revoked.
