Principal Secretary for Mining Harry Kimtai has put a four-year clock on Kenya's mining ambition, telling the October 29 stakeholder forum in Nairobi that the promise of lifting mining to 10 percent of gross domestic product by 2030 stands or falls on three unglamorous fixes: defining exactly who an artisanal miner is, freeing licence blocks that have sat idle for a decade, and tracing gold from pit to bank.
Kimtai wants artisanal, small-scale and large-scale miners defined and licensed strictly as such, warning that cooperatives licensed in the name of artisanal mining are issuing permits to illegal miners.
The ministry will move to clear cadastre blocks held since 2016, 2017 and 2020 to make room for new investment.
Gold traceability under the Central Bank of Kenya's gold buying programme is the pivot: Uganda reports 50 tonnes a year, Tanzania 65, and Kenya wants in within two years.
The forum launched the Artisanal Mining Committee Manual and the ESIA Guidelines for the Mining Sector, work backed by NEMA, UNDP and the Swedish-funded Environmental Governance Programme.
Kimtai confirmed artisanal mining is fully decriminalised: nobody will be arrested for mining as an artisan in their home area.
The definition problem
Kimtai's central complaint was semantic, and expensive. Cooperatives demarcated and licensed in the name of artisanal mining, in Turkana and Bomet among other places, have become the ones issuing licences to illegal mining, he said, blurring the line the ministry needs to police.
We define and license small scale miners as small scale miners and we recognize large scale as large scale.
Artisanal working, he noted, only scratches the surface: rarely past 30 metres down, 50 if pushed, while serious investment begins a kilometre below. The state's interest is not to keep miners artisanal but to graduate them, with land use, adjudication and placement settled first.
Nobody will ever be arrested because they are mining as an artisanal in their home area. That's a God endowment, God blessings and you ought to be supported.
Dormant blocks and the licence queue
On licensing, Kimtai pointed to the online cadastre portal, where applicants can track their own files, and to a recurring reason applications hang: missing community engagement and formal consent on community land and land managed by counties. Where a document or a financial showpiece is missing, he said, the ministry prefers remedy to outright rejection.
But patience has run out for speculative holdings. There are people holding cadastre spaces from 2016, 2017 and 2020, he said, and the ministry must free up that space for meaningful investment.
Kakamega is producing gold from the small-scale sector worth Sh60 billion annually, and we can't trace it because of informality. Give us space and that money will be traced.
Trace the gold
Traceability is where the forum's policy work meets money. Kimtai tied the ministry's gold buying programme with the Central Bank of Kenya to a simple comparison: Uganda reports 50 tonnes of gold exports, Tanzania 65, and Kenyans, being who they are, can close that gap in two years if given the opportunity.
Between July and now, I have not reported on any job created in the sector.
Laban Mburu of Invest Kenya, who tracks emerging-sector investment, pressed for a single coordination mechanism and a shared project pipeline, warning that parallel donor programmes create overlapping reporting burdens while investors ask one question: how do I make my money quickest. His benchmark was the Kisumu port rehabilitation, which delivered berths one and two in under two years once government declared intent.
The parks conversation
Kimtai also put the sector's most sensitive map on the table. Huge mineral deposits, from gold to coltan, copper and rare earths, sit inside protected areas, he said, with one national park possibly holding the largest coltan and nickel deposit in the country, and a mineral belt running from Narok into Migori passing right through the Maasai Mara ecosystem.
No mining in the Mara is proposed, he stressed; the conversation is about being tactful and realistic, with sustainability, environmental and social factors carried from the start. The Principal Secretary added that specific areas have been identified with the State Department for Wildlife for joint validation, with geologists' reports to go to Cabinet for endorsement.
What the forum launched
The day's concrete output was a pair of instruments: the Artisanal Mining Committee Manual and the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment Guidelines for the Mining Sector, with NEMA separately publishing national guidelines on mine site decommissioning and rehabilitation. All three sit on NEMA's public documents page.
The manuals consolidate work from three phases of the Environmental Governance Programme, funded by Sweden and implemented with UNDP across five counties: participatory environmental monitoring, on-site compliance assistance instead of punitive inspection, and occupational health assessments including mercury exposure among artisanal workers. UNDP told the forum the extractive sector already supports more than 800,000 rural livelihoods, and urged a government-led development partners working group to stop duplication. A Kenya Mining Governance Assessment, supported by the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, is underway to produce a shared reform blueprint.
County asks, ministry answers
Who asked | The ask | Kimtai's answer |
Taita miners' chair | Mining locations on ranches with existing management plans; training and licensing for 10 to 20 blasters | Ministry to engage community leaders; blasting regulator to run capacity building and licensing |
Kakamega miners' chair | Space for small-scale mining; traceability for Sh60 billion a year in untraced gold | Survey data on viable areas to be shared with counties; traceability anchored on the CBK gold buying programme |
Joseph Ekana, Turkana miners | County miners' associations included in investor negotiations where prospecting licences overlap artisanal workings | Definitions first; demarcation informed by data; cooperatives and investors to cooperate in designated spaces |
County miners, cross-cutting | Last-mile electricity to mining areas; longer permit tenure to unlock finance | Policy guidelines to come from the Cabinet Secretary's office; asks to be consolidated at a national summit |
The four-year countdown
Kimtai's closing pitch was that the exploration risk has already been paid for: Kenya has completed its national geophysical survey, knows where its minerals sit and in what quantities, and has ground-truthed enough of it that private rigs are now being bought on the strength of public data. On that reading, 2030 is not a slogan but a schedule, four years out, with the cadastre, the definitions and the gold trace as the critical path.
I really actually do work for you. You are my number one client, very important client.
Image: UNDP Kenya.
