At present, historical and updated information about the country’s mineral resources is stored physically, slowing down the processing of mineral rights applications as officers have to manually check records.
The manual system also provides a loophole for speculative concession holders, who are the bane of local mining authorities as they typically take up and hold onto licences without meaningful exploration while waiting to sell the rights forward.
While all holders of prospective licences are required by law to submit quarterly reports on their exploration activities, including budgets, the manual system has been exploited by speculative holders who hold onto rights without any meaningful activity.
“What tends to happen if the system is not digitalised is that we rely on feedback from the licence holders,” Minerals and Energy minister, Lefoko Moagi told BusinessWeek at a briefing on Tuesday. “Even though we know that we have given them from this date to this date, with the clutter of information, you are not able to pick that this prospecting licence has long expired up until someone else wants that licence. “With the digital system, anyone can interrogate that information and we can also see that in any particular area, nothing has been done.”
He added: “The system will actually help a lot in terms of hoarders who go about collecting these prospecting licences and want to speculate and sell them to people outside the country. “We have those challenges and we believe we will eliminate them so that only those genuinely interested will get the licences.”
In previous years, the Department of Mines has reported non-reportage rates of as much as 40% by holders of prospecting licences around the country.
Moagi said the new digital mineral rights system would enhance the ease of access by explorers and potentially greater unlocking of value from the country’s mineral resources.
“We have to employ our systems such as online portals so that investors have this information at their fingertips,” he said. “They need to access this information way before they make invasive efforts to see what’s below the ground. “This system will extend our outreach beyond the borders and help boost minerals prospecting activity. “Information coming out of exploration activities can be easily accessed anywhere in the world and people such as minerals explorers, scholars, farmers and others, can find it for themselves.”
The new online database is expected to go live on November 1.
