.
Defunct Fertilizer to Re-emerge in a Policy Reversal
.
Draft policy will introduce new fertilizer use in the country
.
Tekalign Mamo (Prof.) state minister and advisor to the minister and Selechi Getahun,the state minister for Agriculture chatting during the forum at the Harmony Hotel.
.
The National Fertilizer Industry Agency, which was dissolved as redundant in 2006 with the implementation of the business process reengineering (BPR), is now to be re-established by a new proclamation, which the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) have drafted.
This is part of the revision of the fertilizer policy which the government has been following since 1993. A draft policy prepared jointly by the ATA and the MoA was the subject of stakeholder deliberation on December 23 and 24, 2014, at a meeting held at Harmony Hotel. The Agency will be brought back as an implementer of the new policy, when approved.
The Agency was dissolved with the belief that its job could be undertaken by a regulatory system within the MoA. Its re-establishment will endow it with different powers and responsibilities than it used to have.
Before the dissolving of the agency in 2006, there were 67 registered fertilizer suppliers in the country, all of which would disappear following the annexation of the Agency into the Agricultural Input Supply Enterprise (AISE) as a regulatory body.
“Now the agency is to be established in order to administer the consumption of fertilizers depending on the assessment that we made in 365 Woredas of the country and to test the conformity of the fertilizers to the Ethiopian standards,” Sileshi Getahun, state minister for Agriculture told Fortune.
The agency will have responsibilities related to fertilizer production, import and export, fertilizer demand development, pricing, marketing and distribution, fertilizer quality control, fertilizer registration, fertilizer competence assurance, fertilizer sub-sector governance, and coordination with other bodies.
To carry out the above responsibilities, the Agency will engage in advocacy, encouraging the involvement of the private sector, unions and primary unions in the fertilizer manufacturing industry, decide the type of fertilizers to be imported or locally manufactured, develop guidelines to permit fertilizer production for regional enforcing bodies to facilitate manufacturing permit, facilitate the development of fertilizer quality standard and follow-up execution and decide upon suspension of fertilizers from sale pursuant to the laboratory test result, states the presentation by the Ministry addressed to the gathered stakeholders.
The draft proclamation to Provide for the Establishment of the National Fertilizer Industry Agency, was one of three documents discussed at a meeting held at Harmony Hotel on the aforementioned date. The other documents were the Revised Fertilizer Policy and the Fertilizer Manufacturing and Trade proclamation.
“The major role that is added to the functioning of the Agency is registration of the fertilizers used in the country, which was not implemented because of the existence of only two kinds of fertilizers in the country – DAP and UREA,” Noah Alemu, soil team associate at the ATA told Fortune.
Based on the findings of a research that the ATA conducted in the 365 woredas of the country, it was found that because of the continued use of the two types of fertilizers for 60 years, the soil has lost important nutrients like sulfur, potassium, boron and zinc.
Now the Agency has totally suspended the importation of DAP as of this fiscal year, according to Noah.
“It is like using the same kind of medicine for different diseases,” he said.
The Agency has now began the importation of a new kind of fertilizer called NPS in place of the DAP that the country has been using.
“There are different kinds of fertilizers to be used, such as liquid, solid, and spray and these need to be identified and registered by a regulatory body that could administer the issues related to fertilizers,” paid Noah.
The establishment of the Agency will also embark the participation of the private sector in the fertilizer marketing- both in the production, distribution and importation of the fertilizers that the country requires.
There are 17 soil test laboratories in the country, which will help the Agency import what is needed for the soil in the farming areas.
“There are different formulas of fertilizer that are needed in the country. As seen, even from the experience of Tigray, out of the sampled 160 soil, we need to have 21 formulas. So the Agency will be responsible for the control of quality in the blending of different fertilizers to make the needed formulas,” Noah says.
Now four blending industries owned by farmers’ cooperatives, each costing from one million to two million dollars, are in the pipeline in four regional states, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region, the Amhara Regional State, the Tigray Regional State and the Oromia Regional State. One in the Oromia Region, Becho, Woliso has become operational. But the country requires at least 18 blending industries to the current findings of ATA. The soil test and study of the remaining 365 Woredas will be completed. The total project is expected to be finalized and publicized in three years.
http://addisfortune.net/articles/defunct-fertilizer-to-re-emerge-in-a-policy-reversal/
.
Voucher to Replace Cash Credit for Farmers
.
Voucher, a system tested in a pliot project since 2012, is replacing cash-credit to farmers in some woredas
Left to right TeshomeWalle (PhD), head of Amhara regional bureau of Agriculture, Mekonen Yelewumwosen, CEO of ACSI and TekebaTebabal deputy head of Amhara Corporative Promotion Agency.
.
The government is replacing cash credit to farmers in some woredas with vouchers for them to access fertiliser and improved seeds.
This system was tested in a pilot project, which began in 2012 in the Amhara Regional State, in Baso Liben, Gozamin, Debere Elias, South Achefer and Metecha woredas. It lead to the expected implementation within the coming three months in 73 woredas, half the woredas in the region, involving 2.2 million farming households. The intention is to improve smallholder farmers’ access to credit for agricultural inputs including fertilisers and improved seeds.
Formerly, the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) provided the fund to the bureaus of finance and economic development, which passed the money to unions. The unions passed it to cooperatives, which in turn gave loans to farmers with a full guarantee provided by the bureaus of agriculture. The problem was that the cooperatives distributed the money without any measures to make sure that the farmers would pay it back, says Teshome Walle (PhD), head of Amhara Regional Bureau of Agriculture. This lead to defaults of 143 million Br, 471 million Br, and 447 million Br, in the three years from 2011/12, in Amhara region alone. The defaulted amount was “recovered” by cutting the budgets to the woredas, according to the amount of default within each jurisdiction.
Now the Amhara Credit and Savings Association (ACSI) will issue vouchers to the Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) under it. Farmers will only be able to get these vouchers – not cash-in order to get the inputs they need from cooperatives. The agriculture bureau will no longer provide guarantee, as that has now been replaced with a credit fund established at the ACSI. The farmers, too, will no longer have to start paying immediately, but get a grace period of a year, so that they can repay from the sale of their produce.
The MFI’s will issue the vouchers based on an assessment of the farmers seeking the loan, said Mekonen Yelewumwosen, CEO of ACSI. In 2013/14, the pilot woredas benefited from a credit supply of 196,000qt of fertilisers and seeds, worth 230 million Br, provided to them through the Agricultural Inputs Supply Corporation (AISCO), which is under the Minister of Agriculture(MTA). From total inputs distributed, 48pc was Urea, 42pc DAP, six percent NPS and three percent improved seeds, including teff, wheat, sorgum and maize.
Farmers in the pilot project paid back 99pc of the credit they had taken, said Mekonnen.
The existing practice gave cooperatives and unions five Br to 12 Br commission for every quintal of fertiliser. That has now been increased to 20Br in order to encourage them, said Tekeba Tebabal, deputy head of Amhara Corporative Promotion Agency.
The full project, to now be launched in the 73 woredas expects to extend loans amounting to 2.4 billion Br. ACSI will hire 4,280 workers to implement the project.
This project is supported by financial contributions from the Netherlands Embassy and Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade & Development Canada.
http://addisfortune.net/articles/voucher-to-replace-cash-credit-for-farmers/
.
Ethiopia to start using Sudanese port to import goods
.
.
Ethiopian state minister of transport and communication Ato Getachew Mengestie has said that Ethiopia is to start using Sudanese port for importing goods.
Till now Ethiopia was using Sudanese port for exporting items overseas. The move is said to be triggered by an expanding demand from Ethiopia’s growing economy.
To this end the Ethiopian government has signed a deal with its Sudanese counterpart to import 50 000 tones of fertilizers through the Sudanese port.
Apart from this port, efforts are being made by the Ethiopian government to use other ports like Zeyela, Berbera and others as an alternative choice.
To solve the problem of storage space, a new 5 000 meter square storage facility has been opened a week ago around Mojjo.
.
Ugandan President Visits for Multiple Agreements
.
Musevini and Hailemariam exchanging gestures after the press release at the National Palace.
The first official visit of the Ugandan government delegation after the death of the former Ethiopian Prime minister Meles Zenawi, led by the President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, saw the two countries signing four agreements that focused on infrastructure development like electricity and road development.
The agreements that the ministers of the two countries signed were said to formalise and cement the two countries’ cooperation and strengthen their mutual interests until the next joint ministerial meetings of the two countries, according to PM Hailemariam Dessalegn.
The first agreement of the two countries was made between the Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Minister Tewodros Adhanom and his Ugandan counterpart Henry Okello Oryem to cooperate in the health sector. The two countries are among the better performers in achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG), especially in terms of the reduction of child mortality and improving maternal health.
In the wider range, Africa has halted and reversed the spread of HIV/AIDS, with a drop in prevalence rates from 5.9pc in 2001 to 4.9pc in 2011, according to the 2014 MDG report. The top rows of these performers are graced by the presence of Uganda in place of them.
And as the MDG report of Ethiopia for the year 2010 indicates, the under-five mortality rate has decreased from 167 out of 1,000 in 2001/02 to 123 out of 1,000 in 2005/06 and the infant mortality rate has declined to 77 per 1,000 live births in 2004/05 from 97 per 1,000 live births in 2001/02. In 2009/10 the under-five mortality rates and infant mortality rates decreased to 101 per 1,000 and to 45 per 1,000 live births, respectively. This number is even expected to decline to 31 per 1,000 live births by 2014/15.
The other agreement that the two countries signed was on the sector of transportation. The Ethiopian Minister of Transportation, Workineh Gebeyehu and the Ugandan Minister of State for International Affairs Okelo Oryem signed the agreement on cooperating in the development of transportation infrastructure. The PM, making a point on this, said that his government wished that the Ethiopia-Juba railway construction could extend to Kampala, Uganda.
This time, believing that economic integration should come first from the political integration that the continent is planning to achieve by 2063, the Ethiopian government is constructing a 1,500 Km railway on the Ethiopia-Kenya and Ethiopia-Djibouti corridors, Hailemariam said. Both countries’ stand regarding the economic integrity is a shared belief, which Musevini has been reflecting since the time of the late Meles Zenawi.
“Infrastructure remains critical to enhance our development endeavors. Lack of adequate infrastructure has been the main bottleneck for the development of trade and investment in our sub-region,” stated Hailemariam, who stressed that this has to change.
The PM also expressed his belief in the participation of Uganda in the power interconnection extending from Ethiopia, citing that the already connected Kenya and Uganda line will be used for the transmission of the electricity that Kenya is going to have when the transmission line from Ethiopia is completed.
This idea was also backed up by the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that the two countries signed to cooperate in the energy sector. This was signed between the Ethiopian Minister for Water, Irrigation & Energy Alemayehu Tegenu and his counterpart from Uganda, Simon D’ujang. The MoU signing was finalized by the signing of the sisterly relationship agreement between Addis Abeba and Kampala by the Mayor of Addis Diriba Kuma and by the Executive Director of Kampala Capital City Authority Jennifer Musisi.
The visit of the delegation atmosphere seems to be mixed up by the concern over the peace and stability problems in the sub-region and delight with the consensus that the two reached at on the cooperation.
“Our sub region is one of the most complex and turbulent regions in the world.… most of the countries in the sub region suffer from protracted political strife, arising from local and national grievance and from regional inter-state rivalries,” Hailemariam expressed.
The creation of sustainable peace and security in the region can be ensured only if the region fully cooperates to end these problems, the PM said.
The Ethiopian government was not happy with the deployment of Ugandan troops to the war torn, or the “dead lock” as Hailemariam puts it, region of South Sudan claiming to protect the Ugandan citizens working there.
“I must thank your Excellency and your government for the important role you have played to bring about peace and stability to South Sudan,” said Hailemariam. This seems a change in stance.
Musevini, when asked of the evacuation time of the troops he has in South Sudan, he, somewhat relaxed and unconcerned about the issue, said that it has not yet been decided.
“We are not there to seek jobs and we will stay there until the city of Juba and its citizens are safe to live their normal lives,” he said.
The President, referring to the time that the two countries are currently in, said that they are in the time of resurrection and they “don’t want this to be interrupted by the woregna (talkatives)”.
http://addisfortune.net/articles/ugandan-president-visits-for-multiple-agreements/
.
Stakeholders discuss Ethiopia’s extractive industry
.
Adama – Ethiopia’s Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EEITI) national secretariat brought together national stakeholders for a conference on 24-25 December 2014, on the contribution of the mining sector to Ethiopia’s economy as well as familiarizing them on the EITI process.
The national secretariat is hosted by the Ministry of Mines and Ethiopia has also set up an EEITI multi-stakeholder national steering committee, comprising the government, private sector, and CSOs.
The meeting raised awareness among federal and regional relevant personnel of the key implementing partners with regards to federal and regional mining, environmental protection, audit, finance and economic development and Inland Revenue bureau on EITI process. The conference also examined licensing and administration of minerals and petroleum; revenue management; environmental protection; supporting and coordinating artisanal mining; natural resource management and CSO concerns; as well as value chains and marketing.
Nigeria, which has been compliant (meeting all requirements in the EITI standard) since 2011, was represented by the national EITI executive manager who shared experience on the EITI process and also that country’s challenges and success in implementing the EITI.
Countries meeting the EITI Standard disclose taxes and all payments made to the government by gas, oil and mining companies allowing for an effective multi-stakeholder oversight of the use of the country’s natural resource; with the minorities and indigenous recognized as stakeholders in the extractive industry and their rights of safeguarded.
Ethiopia’s candidacy was accepted by the EITI in 2014 and the country says it is working on the compliance process to meet the EITI Standard and become a member by 2017.
Ethiopia earned USD 540.5 million in 2014 from the export of gold, tantalum and gemstones; however, the contribution of the mining industry to the GDP remains below 2%. The sector’s contribution to job creation is growing. In 2010, 2000 jobs were created in the sector and this figure has shot up to 50,000 in 2013. In 1991, Ethiopia legalized the artisanal mining sector, which now provides livelihood for more than five million people.
“The EITI is helping to improve governance by creating a platform for open discussion about the management of the natural resource among important government organizations and local communities,” said Mining Minister and EEITI National Steering Committee Chair Tolessa Shagi.
Underlining the importance of good governance and strong long-term development planning, UNDP Ethiopia Resident Representative Eugene Owusu said “Countries can avoid the pitfalls of the resource curse, and provide quality services, such as water, sanitation, education and healthcare to their citizens
UNDP is working with the Government of Ethiopia on two-year program costing over half a million US dollars that promotes inclusive growth through strengthening accountability and transparency in the extractive sector. This initiative, which falls under UNDP Ethiopia’s Democratic Governance & Capacity Development intervention, complements UNDP’s global work around the extractive sector, which focuses on sustainable and equitable management of the sector to promote human development.
http://addisstandard.com/stakeholders-discuss-ethiopias-extractive-industry/
.
Universities urged to produce ethical graduates
.
.
Addis Ababa, 29 December 2014 –
The second University Ethics and Good Governance Movement summit has kicked off yesterday in Jimma University. Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission Head Ali Sulieman said universities should pay equal attention to producing ethical graduates as much as training competent ones.
He added major construction projects at universities, bids on purchases, student canteen services, etc. should be based on accountability and transparency.
FDRE Education Minister Shiferaw Shigute on his part said universities should work with other stakeholders to produce ethical graduates.
The summit will end today after a report by the commission is discussed, identifying weaknesses and strengths and setting future steps to take.
http://www.waltainfo.com/index.php/explore/16791-universities-urged-to-produce-ethical-graduates-
.
New Print, Packaging Company to Launch
.
Newaman Metal Packaging Manufacturing Plc to start manufacturing by July 2015
.
A new Ethio-Italian company is to join the print and packaging industry in Ethiopia. The company is owned by the Italian NewBox S.P.A and Ethiopian investor Alemayehu Negussie.
The company, named Newaman Metal Packaging Manufacturing Plc was showcasing its sample products to potential customers at the Fifth Afri Print and Packaging Expo between December 11 and 13, 2014. Afri Print and Packaging Expo is an international trade fair for services, equipment and technologies for printing and packaging that is held in Ethiopia every year.
Newaman Metal Packaging Manufacturing Plc was established with a capital of 73 million Br. Alemayehu owns 55pc of the company while the rest of the shares go to NewBox. The company has been building its factory for the past year on a 6000sqm plot of land leased in Alem Gena town, 24Km from Addis Abeba, says the general manager.
The company will go through the commissioning process by March and start manufacturing in June or July, 2015, said the manager, who declined to be named. It will start with crown caps manufacturing and printing, according to Ottaviano Lucatello, NewBox S.A.P president. The company will have the capacity of manufacturing one billion crown caps a year, stated Ottaviano. After two years it will commence production of ornamented and regular cans, he added. The principal raw materials required for the production is sheet metal, which will be imported from abroad, according to the manager.
The local demand for crown cork is met through both local production and import. Ethiopian Crown Cork and Can Manufacturing S.C., CGF-crown Cork and Aluminum Cap Manufacturing Factory, Daylight Applied Technologies Pvt. Ltd Co. and Metal Crown are the four local factories in Ethiopia. Based on the existing production trend, it is estimated that 1.3 billion pieces of crown caps has been produced locally in 2013, showing 12.6pc production growth compared to the 2012 fiscal year, according to Central Statistics Agency (CSA).
At present, the major source of supply to the local market for crown cork is mainly import. During the period between 2011 and 2013, on average, about 93.24% of the total imports of crown corks were supplied by five countries, namely, India (42.39%), Spain (14.34%), Egypt (14.2%), Italy (12.97%) and France (9.35%), according to Ethiopian Revenue & Custom Authority (ERCA). Other countries supply the remaining.
There is a disproportional supply of crown corks when compared to the high demand, stated Fitsum Getu, One Cent Management & Marketing S.C. (OCM), chief investment and research director. The demand for crown cork depends mainly on the performance of its end-users such as beverage, mineral water and cosmetics industry, explains Fitsum. The current demand for the crown caps in Ethiopia from these industries, which is 3.3 billion pieces, is expected to grow to 5.5 billion pieces in 2015, according to a research by OCM, May, 2014. OCM is an Ethiopian private equity and assessment management share company established on December 3 2010. Newaman engagement will have greater significant to meet the increased demand, stated Ottaviano.
The fifth Afri Print and Packaging Expo was organised by Prana Promotion, Expo team and the Ethiopian Publishers and Printers Association. Prana promotion was established in 2008 with a mission to promote and fill the gap in potential sectors and industries in Africa. This exhibition is held in order to promote the print and packaging industry as well as to identify and fill gaps in the industry, said Nebyou Lemma, Prana Promotion’s managing director. Around 41 companies from all over the world had participated in the exhibition. This is a great way to keep ourselves up-to-date with the latest technology and share experiences, stated Mekdes Nega, a visitor from Akoatet Printing Plc. Though there is a great potential for the industry, it is characterised by a lack of educated human resource in the sector, according to Mekdes. Next year the exhibition will be held in Addis Abeba in a much bigger arena, stated Nebyou.
http://addisfortune.net/articles/new-print-packaging-company-to-launch/
.
New meat processors in the making
.
Hailesilassie Weres
.
Euro Foods, a French-based meat processing firm, is considering setting up meat processing plants in Ethiopia as more and more foreign companies are drawn into the sector.
In his recent interview with The Reporter, Hailesilassie Weres, director of Ethiopian Diary and Meat Industry Development Institute, said that Euro Foods is on the verge of acquiring land to set up a processing plant in Ethiopia.
The company would invest USD 32 million if all goes according to plan, Hailesellaise told The Reporter.
The company is expected to raise whole fund through equity financing abroad to finance their project in Ethiopia.
Abebaw Mekonen, secretary general of Ethiopian Meat Producers-Exporters Association also confirmed that the French-based company is on the process to join Ethiopian meat industry.
Euro Foods represents the surge of growing interest for the meat processing industry in a nation with the largest cattle population in Africa.
According to Abebaw, a local firm called Kegna is well underway setting up a processing plant in south eastern Ethiopia- namely Awash Melkassa area. Companies like Jigjiga Export Slaughter House PLC are also successful new entrants in the business.
The government plans to amass quarter of a billion dollars this year from the export of honey, dairy and meat products by the end of this fiscal year. Hailesellaise said that some 49 thousand MT of meat products are expected to reach the international market mainly the Middle East.
It is to be remembered that the Indian based Allana Sons had joined the meat export business with a USD 20 million investment to set up a new plant in the Oromia Regional State at the town of Ziway some 159 km from the capital. Allana Sons was registered as Frigorifico Boran Foods PLC in Ethiopia and was able to acquire 75 hectare of land. Hailesellaise said the Indian food giant is also associated with yet another investment buying out a Turkish meat exporting company stationed in Ethiopia.
According to Hailessellasie, Organic Abattoir Slaughter, Abyssinia Export Abattoirs, Luna Export Slaughter House and Modjo Modern Export Abattoir PLC are among the fairly performing firms in the industry, while Elfora Agro Industries PLC, which belongs to the Midroc Technology Group, is among the poor performing export slaughter houses in the meat industry.
The value chain and animal feed shortages are hampering the growth of the industry according to an industry analysis by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). On the other hand, quality and meat hygiene are some of the critical barriers for Ethiopian meat exporters in the international markets competence.
.
Capital market helps to sustain Ethiopia’s economic growth: Scholars
.
.
Economic scholars said Ethiopia’s debut exercise at the capital market by issuing a 1 billion USD sovereign bond will help it to sustain the economic growth.
The scholars whom ENA has interviewed asserted that it will have positive influence on the economy by strengthening the financial system, attract more foreign direct investment, increase role of the private sector and get additional hard currency.
Dr Tasew Woldehana, an economic lecturer at Addis Ababa University, a state-owned institution, told ENA that the economic growth witnessed over the past 10 years has resulted in huge demand for capital, energy, communication facilities and other infrastructures among the public.
Underlining the fact that meeting this growth driven demand requires huge sum of money, the capital market could be an alternative source of finance.
“Failing to meet this demand will create a difficulty in keeping the momentum of the economic growth” Dr Tasew said.
According to him, injecting huge amount of money to the infrastructure development will have good returns, since infrastructure is a backbone to the whole economic activity.
As the government decided to utilize the money on infrastructural programs, he pointed the importance of the decision by indicating that the county needs to improve its infrastructure facilities as it is at the initial stage in this regard and doing that will better off the economic performance.
According to Dr. Demelash Habte, an economics lecturer at Unity University, a private institution, capital market provides good opportunity to create efficient, effective and organized financial system and sustain economic growth.
In the long run, the capital market will create an opportunity to the private sector to secure funds for their projects thereby become an impetus for the growth.
The finance secured from the capital market will add energy to the consecutive economic growth of the country, noting that growth came so far using limited resources.
Noting that lack of resources were the major reasons for development projects to lag behind the plans, Dr Demelash said this new financial resource will help the government address challenges related to finance.
Joining the capital market, the government can now enhance the economic growth by establishing an investment bank and introduce an organized stock market, he suggested.
For his part, Senior Macroeconomic Expert Dr Eyob Tesfaye said the capital market will help to change the country’s economic dependence on import-export trade, bilateral and multilateral grant or loan.
He said it will also provide a good opportunity for Ethiopia to attract more foreign direct investment, in which the country is working at to strengthen its economy.
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has disclosed last week that the finance secured from the capital market will be used to fund construction of new sugar factories and industrial zone.
.
Ministry slashes Nyota’s concession near GERD
.
.
The British mining firm prospecting for gold in Ethiopia, Nyota Minerals, announced that the Ethiopian Ministry of Mines slashed its gold exploration concession in western Ethiopia near the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
Following submissions to renew the exploration licenses called Towcester and Brantham projects, in western Ethiopia, the Ministry of Mines has taken the decision not to renew any license areas or to issue new exploration licenses that would be affected by the development, along the Nile river.
A press release issued by Nyota last week, the company said the ministry’s decision affected the Towcester license, where the rationale for the renewal of the Gombo block was to conduct exploration and prospecting in support of the proposed mechanized mining of the alluvial deposits that would be inundated by the rising water level.
As a result, while the exploration license for the Towcester project had been renewed, the exploration area had now been reduced from 1 002 sqkm to 48 sqkm.
Similarly, the exploration license for the Brantham project was also renewed, but had narrowed the exploration area from 1 346 sqkm to 717 sqkm.
Nyota noted that the new licenses kept intact the North West-South East lineament of anomalies within the Brantham area and preserved for Nyota the extension of that lineament in the Towcester license; which was particularly important as this was immediately adjacent to the Boka West target.
“However, the remainder of the Towcester license has either been relinquished or was not renewed,” it stated.
Nyota added that the application for a mining license, submitted in the name of Towcester for the conversion of a portion of the exploration license as it was in April 2014, remained unaffected by the decision not to renew or to issue exploration licenses for any areas that would be affected by the rising water of the dam.
“Indeed, the intent of this application and its timeliness was precisely because the river gravels will be submerged and their value otherwise lost.
“The application is still being considered by the Ministry of Mines and, as is necessary, by other government departments. Those deliberations are internal and Nyota cannot, therefore, report progress with the application,” it reported.
Nyota, meanwhile, continued to review new opportunities as they arose.
The Minister of Mines , Tolossa Shagi Moti, told The Reporter that the ministry is evaluating Nyota’s proposal to mine the alluvial gold deposit along the Abay river, near the GERD. “A decision has not been made. We are assessing their proposals,” Tolossa said.
Nyota Minerals Limited is a gold exploration and development company dual listed on the London Stock Exchange and Australian Stock Exchange. Nyota has discovered a large amount of primary gold deposit in Tulu Kapi locality in western Wellega. The gold deposit at Tulu Kapi is estimated at 24 .9 tone. Nyota recently sold its working interest on the Tulu Kapi mine to a company called KEFI Minerals, a London-based mining firm.
Filed under: Ag Related, Economy, Infrastructure Developments, News Round-up Tagged: Agriculture, Business, East Africa, Economic growth, Ethiopia, Fertilizer, Investment, Millennium Development Goals, Potash, Sub-Saharan Africa, tag1
