Firm to launch mining trial project in Lilongwe
Sovereign Service Limited is set to launch Kasiya Rehabilitation Trial Project to address land degradation after the extraction period of the mine.
C12 Consultant manager Robert Hartley-Louis, whose firm is consulting for Sovereign Service Limited,said this on Monday in Lilongwe after briefing Lilongwe District Environmental Sub-Committee about the project.
He said: “This project is about the environmental and social management plan and we are optimistic that we will achieve great results.
“We have put in place a number of strategies to achieve that, such as establishing several test pits to test various mining and come-up with rehabilitation options.”
Hartley-Louis said a large part of the Kasiya Mining Site covers people’s farms, thus, it will be dangerous to leave the site just like that as the land will not be economically useable again.
He said the rehabilitation trials will be undertaken on a 9.6-hectare (ha) starting this year.
Lilongwe District Council chief environmental officer Boniface Chimwaza thanked Sovereign Service Limited for the initiative.
“As a committee that looks at environment issues at district level, we are always excited with such positive initiatives, knowing that despite having mining activities, the environment will be conserved to the benefit of people in the area,” he said.
Sovereign Service Limited is a registered Malawian company under Sovereign Metals Limited, an Australian company which has been earmarked forthe establishment of rutile and natural flake graphite deposits in Kasiya in Lilongwe District.
Kasiya is the largest natural rutile deposit and second largest flake graphite deposit in the world
PHOTOGRAPH: ERANIVEY TEMANI, MANA
