Australians to open Uranium Mine in Northern Malawi

Pilirani Semu-BandaBlantyre

Malawi will have its first-ever modern mining project located in the northern town of Kayelekera in Karonga by early next year if plans by an Australian mining company, Paladin (Africa) Limited, are successful.

In April this year, the Malawi government granted the mining company a licence to exploit up to 34,5 million tons of uranium.

• The project will generate an annual income of over 100 million US dollars, which is about five percent of Malawi's annual gross domestic product and 20 percent of the country's total export income.
• The revenue for the uranium is projected to exceed tobacco's annual proceeds of 19 million US dollars. Tobacco is currently Malawi's main foreign exchange earner.
• The uranium project also promises to transform the under-developed Kayelekera into a prosperous town and create jobs for 800 people during the construction phase and 280 people during the operational phase.
• It also promises to indirectly support more than 1,000 additional jobs, build a modern primary school, a secondary school and a health facility near the project area.

However, controversy has been dogging the project since its hatching stages with fears from the public that the mining of uranium poses serious health hazards, such as cancer and disability in infants due to radiation.

• n environmental impact assessment (EIA) was conducted last year by an international consulting firm, Knight Piesold Consulting. Among others, it indicated that the project could increase social problems in the Karonga area in the form of increased cases of HIV/AIDS due to the migration of sex workers to the area.

There will be an increase in the existing commercial sex industry and risks of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS," says the EIA.
A group of six influential civil society organizations in Malawi said the company has neither complied with the Environmental Management Act nor with international uranium mining standards which underscore the importance of ensuring health and environmental protection for people.
These organisations were the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP), the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR), Focus on Karonga, Citizens for Justice, the Institute for Policy Interaction (IPI), the Uraha Foundation and the Foundation for Community Services.

They have since obtained a court injunction stopping the project from proceeding. It is unlikely that the issue will be resolved soon since court processes in Malawi usually take a long time due to case backlogs.
Titus Mvalo says uranium is radioactive and that with open-pit mining, like the one to be conducted at Kayelekera, the soil drains into rivers and contaminates the water. When humans drink the water, it damages kidneys and causes cancer.

• In Malawi, according to the 2006 Human Development Report (HDR), up to 33 percent of the population of 12 million people do not have access to safe water. They depend on water from rivers and lakes. Mvalo says there is a need for measures that will mitigate the damage that could arise from radiation.

The Rest @ AllAFrica.com, via inter-press Johannesburg