Conference seeks to clarify mining industry

Domestic and international experience in strengthening transparency and preventing corruption in the Vietnamese mining industry were discussed at a round-table conference in Hanoi from May 16-17.

The conference, co-organised by the Government Inspectorate and the Swedish Embassy in preparation for the 9 th Corruption Prevention Dialogue, said that in the recent three years, although provinces and cities nationwide conducted thousands of examinations and inspections of mining activities and cleared away many illegal mining sites, mineral exploitation management has seen lot of shortcomings.

Many participants raised concern about the loose management and massive licensing in the mining industry in Vietnam , affirming that an important factor that directly affected current mining management activities was the weak management apparatus.

Inspection, examination and supervision of mining activities of businesses in localities were still limited, they said.

In order to prevent corruption in State management on mining, participants emphasised the need to complete policies and legal institutions on minerals, build mining strategies and improve the feasibility of mining plans, together with renovating mechanisms to protect mineral resources and strengthening the inspection, examination and supervision of mining activities.

It is necessary to raise the capacity of State management agencies from central to local levels and improve the quality of verification of documents such as mining licences, as well as take measures to reduce output of several minerals, they said.

The capacity of corruption prevention forces at all levels and agencies in charge of corruption prevention should be improved, conference participants said, adding that the government should amend and supplement several decrees in the direction of raising fines for violations of mineral exploitation and processing.

Posted by VBN on May 18 2011. Filed under Mining & Metal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry