A small-scale miner from Orutumba village in the Epupa Constituency is calling on the government to assist them with attracting investors for their minerals and also equipment to make their mining activities easier.
nbc News team caught up with Fillippus Shipanga, a small-scale miner of blue sodalite, a precious rock only found in the Kunene Region.
“A blue sodalite is a rock that is used like the B1 grade is used for tiles, and this super blue one is used for necklaces and ring rocks. its used for a lot of things, but these are the basics.”
Shipanga, who has been mining blue sodalite rocks on a small scale since 2008, shared his mining journey with our news team.
“The start is always difficult. I started with one spade and a hummer working on the rocks and with four community members and I have been the foreman but sometimes I leave them with the responsibility when I go to Windhoek to renew my licenses in Windhoek but we kept pushing.”
He says over the years, they have been struggling with investors in their mining activities.
“These are the rocks, as you can see, but there are no investors, or to say, buyers. Some of them we work on, and they get old there, but in some instances you get a buyer who takes like 3 to 5 tonnes; that little income at least helps us to buy our needs.”
Another challenge he pointed out was a lack of proper machinery to extract the blue sodalite rocks.
“The challenge is also here; you can see these rocks are deep, so we use our hands: one goes in the pit, one stays here, so he gives this one, and this one gives the next guy to take it outside, because there are no excavators. We just used a spade, not even a truck; that’s what we are struggling with, but we are pushing. We are hoping our government will assist us with an excavator and a truck to help carry the rocks. I think if we get that everything will go well.”
Shipanga also expressed gratitude to the Ministry of Mines and Energy for its efforts to bring some of its services closer to them.
“When it comes to my documents and licenses, I really thank our government. They called me from here to go to Windhoek so I can get my documents, including prospect mining licenses and the one for dimension stones, the big blocks. I renew it every time it expires, and now the government has put an office in Opuwo. We no longer go to Windhoek, so when we need to renew, we just go to Opuwo.”
He is positive that, if they can receive assistance, they would be able to derive maximum economic benefits from their small-scale mining activities of blue sodalite rock.