In discussions between the Ministry of Mines, Gas and Oil and the miners of the Southern Province, the Deputy Director General of the Ministry Dr Twagirashema Ivan says that Rwanda will earn one and a half billion dollars from precious stones in the year 2024.
Dr Twagirashema Ivan, the Deputy Director General of the Mine Gas and Petroleum Agency, told the authorities that last year 2022, the country earned 784 million US dollars in foreign exchange.
The Director said that they will achieve this goal by using mining technology because there is a large production that was carried by the water during the filtration.
“In the past, people used to dig with shovels, picks and other traditional tools, in mining, it would be time to filter and lose a lot,” he said.
Twagireshema said that in the way it was used, the miners were left with 30% of the production, and found that the other 70% was carried away by the water that filtered it.
He said, “Now we want the miners to be helped to get the technological equipment so that the production does not continue to fail.”
The President of the Miners Association in South Kinyogote Emmanuel says that RMB should help them get information on the production of precious stones, which every province sends to the market because that is what makes the people who work in this profession love it more and work more competitively.
Kinyogote asked the RMB Management to help those who want to dig for precious stones to get documents in a way that is not difficult for them.
He said, “You are going to inform us of the production of precious stones that each province sends to the market, which would help us to work with our efforts.”
The Governor of the Southern Province, Kayitesi Alice, said that most of the income from this Province comes from the mining of precious stones because in the 8 Districts of the Province, almost all of them have precious stones.
Only Kayitesi says that they have the problem of some workers who do not have the permits to allow them to dig.
“In addition to digital mining, we want the problem of miners working in this way to disappear,” he said.
Those who were in these talks were given a voice, they were returning to the RMB license which is slow to issue, which encourages other miners and creates less security because there are also people who die in the mines because of this.
Out of 27 people who were hit by landmines in Southern Province, about 19 of them were hit by landmines in Muhanga District and 9 others were seriously injured.
Cyakora Kamonyi District has the largest number of mines that do not include licensed miners as it has about 6.
Rwanda has 4 industries that process different precious stones including Colta, Gasegereti, Gold and Silver and gemstones that produce expensive necklaces.
