Government is considering new legislation that gives the Mine
sovereignty over resources

Daniela Garcia / noticias@...

The government is studying the creation of a new law of Mines confer on him the State full sovereignty for the exploitation of mineral resources. According to the Ministry of Basic Industries and Mining (Mibam), the proposal is not a reform but in the realization of a new legal instrument that will regulate the exploitation of the deposits.




Ivan Hernandez, vice minister of Mibam, announced that''in this new proposal has been included the removal of concessions, considering the need for the State to exercise full sovereignty over all the country's mineral resources. In this regard will be set up
cooperatives and community-associative forms, which are responsible for exercising small-scale mining.''

The official said that the project, which was conducted in
collaboration with the Mine subcommittee of the National Assembly, will be delivered in a span of two months to President Hugo Chávez.

According to information provided by the portal of Mibam, Hernandez said that concessions whose term expires will not be renewed, since the new legislation raises that the deposits will be exploited only by joint ventures whose main shareholder the State Venezuelan.

''Among the most important aspects covered in this new proposal are: the incorporation of rural and indigenous communities in project implementation and aggregation of national value.''

It was to be expected

Gilberto Sanchez, president of the Venezuelan Mining Chamber
(Camiva), had warned that the mining industry faced many constraints, because the current government has suspended the supply of concessions for the exploitation of deposits.

On that occasion, the representative said that one sector of the
impediments that must be fought is with the delays in delivery of
environmental permits, which are hindering the development of
operations and to discourage investors.

In conversations with La Verdad, the representative of Camiva
indicated that''the permits delayed too long to be processed, if
approved accompanied by more procedures to prolong the process and that are beyond those established in the Mining Act. We insist that the government you have to do is to implement and respect the current law of Mines which was enacted in September 1999.''

Without financing

The president of the Venezuelan Mining Chamber said that there are mining projects in the hands of the government who are paralyzed by lack of funding. It took as a reference for a plant concentration of iron. ''If you do not forward this project we will have inadequate input of raw ore to feed seven floors of production.''

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