By Lodu William Odiya
The Transitional National Legislative Assembly committee on mining has urged the ministry of environment to expedite the presentation and enactment of environment policy and Bill 2025 in order to fill the gap of legal reference and frame work of environmental Legislation.
This followed a report that was presented by the standing specialized committee on mining at the August house yesterday.
According to the report, the committee recommended the government to expedite the process of joining the extractive industries transparency Initiative as recommended in the R-ARCSS.
“The committee strongly recommend that the national ministry of environment expedite the presentation and enactment of environment policy Bill 2025” statement partly read.
The amendment Bill also proposed establishment of new national mining related institution such as South Sudan Geographical Survey Agency, Mine corporation, Mining Authority and License for Gold refinery.
The current mining Act 2012 (Amendment Bill) 2026 proposed to add new provisions such as creating license for Gold Refinery, Tax exemption, Health incident compensation, quarry and detariling the roles and responsibility of the national government in relation to the mining sector.
Meanwhile, Oreste Lopara who is a member of the Committee on Mining emphasized a need for a critical look into every branch so that it benefits the people of South Sudan.
“We are saying that this country has a lot of main roads. The bill to do with main roads is to be carefully deliberated and expanded as needed” he said.
He underscored that mining sector is one of the sectors that can make the country get more money than oil revenue.
The members emphasized that the bill has to be looked into very critically in order to include what will be beneficial to the citizens at large.