On the contrary; the new mining Bill is good for Kenya The author (Waga Odongo) seems more

interested in advocating for the foreign min ing companies rather than for Kenya. Minerals are an exhaustible resource so we should focus more on value addition in Kenya. Kenya will never march to riches by exporting raw mineral ore. We should use our minerals as the basis of an industr ial revolution in Kenya. I am happy to learn that the Bill says that no licences shall be granted for raw ore. In other words, all ores must undergo value addition in the country. For e xample, we are seeing many cement factories being built in Kenya thus providing jobs and taxes. These factories use limestone mined in Kenya. If economies-of-scale in order to put up a refinery is the issue, then rather th an exporting the minerals to countries outside EAC, let us come together with ou r neighbouring countries and invest in the refining capacity. For example, Kenya , Uganda and South Sudan can build one refinery or petro-chemical plant to proce ss their crude oil. The example that Jamnagar Refinery in India refines more crude oil daily than ou r Kenyan refinery does in a year is irrelevant. I wish that by the time Tullow i s ready to extract the crude oil from the wells in Turkana, the GoK will have at tracted firms to manufacture petrochemicals from the crude oil rather than expor ting it. In my opinion therefore, Kenya should charge more than twice the royalty rates o f Australia for gold and copper if the mining firms only export the gold bullion s or copper nuggets. I have been to Lubumbashi in Southern DRC and seen the sad spectacle of hundreds of trucks exiting at the Kasumbalesa border yet the Congol ese live in abject poverty. Once the minerals are exhausted, the mining firms close shop and leave huge crat ers where once was pristine environment. It is immaterial that Tanzania makes 13 times more money from minerals annually than Kenya does despite its smaller econ omy . If Tanzania is more attractive than Kenya to mining firms, that s fine. I also know that it is attractive to hunters of wildlife. Kenya does not allow wildlif e hunting and with good reason. In other words, Kenya does not have to make its policy based on what Tanzania does. I see the 10 per cent free carried interest on any mining licences granted as a small share of profits in the mining venture. Even though Kenya will not have co ntributed the funds towards the business, our land is the equity. This is a comm on business practice. There was a court case recently where a certain family in Kiambu County gave their land as equity in a massive housing construction projec t. Since the Bill gives the government the Right of Pre-Emption i.e. the right to b uy any minerals mined in Kenya if they are put up on sale before they are sold t o anyone else, the mining firm should not enter into a long-term agreement to se ll all the ores to a client at a stated price.I remember how a certain Kenyan ex ercised his Right of Pre-Emption and sold his shares in a mobile telephony firm for a very huge profit. How did Kenya benefit from that deal? The idea of reducing the size of the land for prospecting by 50 and then 25 per cent at the time of renewing the mining licence is very good. If a mining firm c annot find the mineral then they should cede ground to other firms. Many decades ago, certain firms declared that there was no oil in Turkana yet Tullow has dis covered oil in several wells!!

Kenya may currently not have infrastructure to support the mining firms, compara ble to either South Africa or Australia, but the question is; did these countrie s have the infrastructure when their mining industry was at its nascent stage? I wouldn t be surprised if the GoK gave a tax exemption to Base Titanium to build i ts own port facility to aid in exporting the mineral. Even if the combined taxes, rates, and royalties charged by Kenya are over 50 pe r cent, the question is; 50% of what? The value of the gold bullion or copper nu gget is many times that of the raw ore. What is the percent of these taxes as me asured against the value of the jewellery made from the gold? Why can t the copper extracted in DRC and Zambia be converted into copper wires before export? I wou ldn t be surprised if the raw material that East African Cables Ltd uses to manufa cture their copper wires is imported from outside Africa. Why should consumers in West Africa or North Africa drink Liptons tea from UK ye t the raw material comes from Kenya? Japan has no minerals yet it is the 3rd lar gest economy in the world. The income per capita for Singapore, a small island w ithout any minerals, is probably 10,000 times that of Kenya.