In just over three years, the Nation has achieved formalize 15,000 minersand the goal for August of this year is for 27,000 Colombians to leave extractive informality.
(Read: Agro and mines still do not resume pre-covid activity levels).
The figure, based on the records of the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), is striking, if one takes into account that, between 2006 and 2018, 6,500 miners were formalized, and between August 2018 and March 2022 the number almost doubled since there are 15,000 who went to formality.
“We reiterate our commitment to legality, opening the paths so that more miners join and can be the engine of development for the territories. The four-year goal is 10 times more than what was achieved in previous periods”, assured the Minister of Mines and Energy, Diego Mesa.
For her part, the Vice Minister of Mines, Sandra Sandoval, affirmed that formalization is good business because it allows miners to obtain “a fair remuneration for their activity, that they can market their production and have traceability of their operations.”
Other data from the MME indicate that, for each new formalized miner, between 20 and 60 direct jobseach operation that falls under the legal framework generates royalties for the regions, and water basins are preserved, because mercury is not used.
In addition, the small and medium-sized formal miners in the country already have a series of regulations and legal tools to quickly access the services of the national financial and insurance system.
This is Law 2177 of 2021, whose articles are intended to establish conditions to guarantee the entry of the formalized extractive activity into credits and savings accounts offered by the entities that are supervised by the Superfinanciera and the Supersolidaria.
(Besides: Mining: Bolivia, Peru and Chile surpass the country in accepting their activity).
“Work is being done to promote legal mining, with a business, responsible, competitive, influential and reliable approach. It is necessary to promote the formality of the transactions carried out by the sector, as well as to ensure flows of resources for the development of operations and promote the application of best technical, environmental and social practices.Sandoval pointed out.
Although the goal is formalize 27,000 miners in the current four-year periodand the Nation has identified 34,000 Colombians interested in the program, of which more than 15,000 have reached legality, and another 15,000 have a vocation for legality.
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