The Lands Ministry has challenged aggrieved mining operators whose licences have been revoked to go to court for their grievances to be addressed.
The Deputy Minister, Yusif Sulemana told the Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday, November 3, 2025 that there is enough evidence of individuals who owned concessions but did not need them.
He says some even attempted to sell off their concessions to other people because they had no use for them.
He maintained that the Ministry’s decision to revoke the licenses was lawful and backed by evidence of procedural and ethical breaches in the approval process.
“As I speak with you, just last week, about 278 small-scale mining licenses were revoked. Because we found out that a lot of the irregularities that have not been resolved were the reasons why we had to revoke them. In many cases, even when the recommendation said the mining should not happen, they went ahead and approved and gave out those concessions. We have revoked all such, and we challenge them to take us to court,” he asserted.
He has blamed past leadership of the ministry and the minerals commission for those gaps that contributed to illegal mining activities across the country, stating that over 270 licences have been revoked.
The Deputy Minister added that a number of the revoked licenses presented significant environmental and safety hazards, with some of them situated dangerously near high-tension power lines and residential areas.
“There were instances where the concessions were close to communities. If you were to go ahead to mine, you would end up mining within the homes of people. Also, we had some high-tension power lines running through the concession, and these ordinarily should not have been approved, but they were,” he said.
Mr. Yusif also condemned the practice of miners obtaining dubious permissions and threatening traditional authorities with unauthorized documents.
“Some chiefs would sit in their palaces, and people would walk in with their purported approval to mine and just flash them in the faces of these chiefs to mine, when they, the owners of these lands, were not consulted. That is not what the law says,” he stressed.
He assured that all petitions from chiefs and affected communities would be investigated and that only legitimate and compliant miners would be allowed to operate.
