Online portal to enhance transparency in Kenya’s mining industry

The Kenya Ministry of Mining today launched their official Cadaster Portal (or register) to enable government to regulate and obtain value from mining operations.

Some of the things the newly launched cadaster will help the government in doing include: formally recording all applications for various types of licences and issues tittles for these licenses, registering all changes to the title, checking against overlapping with existing claims or other impediments and advising the Ministry whether the application is technically sound and if the license payments have been done. The portal also initiates the procedures for modifying or cancelling a license if needed, maintaining a register and a map of the licenses as a technical reference in case of dispute and it will also facilitate submission of statutory fees for licenses.

During the launch, DP William Ruto said: “Anyone who has worked with the government comes to understand that the government is very big and their primary role is to make the institution small enough to serve the people by eliminating bureaucracy. The Ministry of Mining is eliminating bureaucracy.”

“Kenya joins a club of a few countries whose applications are done online and in real time. Any qualified person from anywhere in the world can apply. By digitizing government payments we will minimize cost by 30 percent, this small step by the Ministry of Mining contributes to that big step,” added the DP.

The Online Transactional Mining Cadaster Portal (OTMCP) is a web-based e-Government system through which participants in the Kenyan mining industry will be able to interact with the Ministry to: view licenses or permit details and application status in real time, submit and manage electronically the application for granting renewals and other business processes, submit digital documents to meet reporting requirements and also to submit fee payments via credit card or mobile money.

During the launch Patrick Omutia, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Mining (who represented the Cabinet Secretary for Mining Najib Balala) said that the portal will increase transparency, efficiency and equitable sharing of minerals which will in turn help in cleaning up hoarded grounds and renewing spaces and transferring them.

Omutia stated that one of the benefits of the new system is that it narrows down the minimum period of getting a license to three months as opposed to the past where it took eighteen months to get the same.

The Online Transactional Mining Cadaster Portal (OTMCP) application is based on the FlexiCadastre framework.