BY MANUEL ODENY, @TheNyanzaNews

The Kenya Central Bank of Kenya is banking on the upcoming Kakamega gold refinery to buy gold directly from miners and boost strategic reserves.

Hillary Kimtai, the Principal Secretary, State Department for Mining said already the department is working with the Central Bank to emulate neighbours Tanzania who buy gold directly from internal miners.

“Currently our strategic reserves at the bank are pegged on dollars which is highly volatile and fluctuates, gold is a more secure reserve and we will phase off towards that as a country,” Kimtai said.

He said the ministry and the Central Bank are closely tracking the progress of the work at the refinery and will be the first market at buying process gold.

“Kenya will offer market for internal gold and buy directly from miners this will not only shore up our financial strategic in gold, but also offer steady and ready market for internal gold,’ he said.

Kenya launched a Sh5.8 billion gold refinery at Lidambitsa area, Ikoloman constituency of Kakamega County and is expected to be a game changer in the mineral mining sector in the country.

The venture being undertaken by a foreign investor H-NUO Kenya Company, will benefit thousands of artisanal miners across the country and who have been mining the valuable mineral manually with inherent dangers.

By banking on gold, Kenya will be poised to stand better to push her financial stability and economic well-being in meeting external obligations, manage exchange rate fluctuations and economic shocks.

He was speaking in Migori town last Monday when he officially opened the Nyanza Gold Summit.

Kimtai said the current government will ensure sector players, especially artisanal miners, are licensed in a line with the bottom up economic model.

“We know as a government that miners, especially artisanal ones, are the real patriotic as they ensure we benefit from our natural resources,” he said.

He said Kenya has made strides because it has recorded 182 miners cooperatives which is a major step to empower the sector to get conditional permits with  Migori county leading with 27 cooperatives as the oldest region to start gold mining while the newest region West Pokot has 4 cooperatives.

His sentiments was shared by Dr. Patrick Kanyoro, Chair Kenya Chamber of Mines said since 1900s when gold was discovered in the country, claims that the country legally exported 365kg of the ore last year was laughable.

“We have been discouraged but we are moving on in the sector, despite looking for legality we believe we can produce more and more is produced,” Kanyoro said.

Edward Ndirangu, an officer at the Impact Facility said despite not being licensed and the sector being shied off for financing by mainstream financial system they have been working to bridge the gap.

“We do leasing of equipment to artisanal and small scale miners where as long as you have worked for six months and have a registration we partner easily, we also offer financial literacy and we can use our knowledge to rope in banks,” Ndirangu said.

He said to push through ethical operation in the gold sector, they have introduced gold  credits and honor to push through ethical way of extracting mineral responsibly by taking care of the environment, safeguarding workers’ welfare and gold is sold off responsibly.

“We pay an incentive US Dollars 5,000 for every kilo of gold sold ethically, this will boost the sector,” he said.

Hon. Okoth Obado, former Migori governor said through the Nyanza Gold Summit challenges like government harassment and registration will be ironed out.