The town council leadership says there will be co-existence between the new company and local artisan miners
Rwenzori Shining Stars Limited-the Chinese-Ugandan consortium is investing 2.7 Trillion Shillings to revive Lake Katwe Salt Project in Kasese District.
The company will use salt brine as a raw material to set up a plant to produce between 50,000-100,000 tons of salt per year and other products including phosphate needed in fertilizer production. The investment will also produce glasses, batteries and chlorine for treatment of National Water and Sewage Corporation-NWSC plants.
The consortium was established following an investment agreement that was signed in April 2018 between Uganda’s Rwenzori Salt Industries and the Chinese company Shining Star Group with a shareholding of 49% and 51% for each company respectively.
After getting an exploration license from the Ministry of Energy in November 2018, the company proceeded to do exploration and a commercial feasibility study was later completed in 2019 by Deloitte & Touche Company. The ministry gave them a 3-year license.
The Mayor Katwe Kabatooro Town Council John Bosco Kananura says the agreement allocates only a section of the lake for this investment to allow the local artisan miners to continue with their activities.
Kananura says the 2.7 trillion shillings project means improved social corporate responsibilities, employment and improved purchasing power. He adds that upon completion of this project Rwenzori sub-region is poised to be one of the biggest industrial hubs in the country.
Landus Kambasu the head of agents monitoring the mining fields welcomes the development but is concerned that more than 90 people who have been extracting salt are likely to be displaced.
Everest Musimenta, who owns salt pans, says reviving the salt factory could open up jobs to many young people in the town council and beyond. He also wants the pan owners to be contracted to supply salt to the company.
Oliver Kihunde however is worried that their request to apply for ownership of the pans was not honoured by the government, implying that they can be displaced without any compensation once the company finds interests in their pans.
Kihunde is also worried that the deep extraction could give way to increased water volumes in the lake hindering their work.
However, Kananura allays the fears saying that the agreement creates for co-existence between the company and the local artisanal miners.
Liu Jin, the Deputy General Manager of the Uganda Salt Mine project says the Uganda salt mine project is one of the overseas investment projects that the group takes very seriously, and its development prospects are infinite.
Starting in the late 1970s, the government development agency Uganda Development Corporation- UDC built a factory in Katwe to process the salt brine.
Construction was interrupted by the wars of the period not until 1982 when work was revived.
But the operation did not last than two years on grounds of mismanagement and salt corroding the machinery.
The government has since been struggling to find reliable investors.
-URN
