By Paul Adude
Entebbe — The National Environment Management Authority has expressed fear that hundreds of gold miners in five districts could be suffering nervous disorder, lung and kidney ailments and eventually death through exposure to mercury.
“There is a lot of mercury poisoning that unprotected miners encounter unknowingly as they use the chemical,” Mr Tom Okurut, the executive director of National Environment Management Authority (Nema), said .
“They are inhaling it and this will affect their nervous, respiratory and immune systems with the toxicity depending on the type of mercury,” Mr Okurut told participants at a regional workshop on the development of national action plans for artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Entebbe, yesterday.
Mercury is currently used by artisan gold miners who mixed it with other extracts to form a mercury-gold amalgam. This is later heated to separate gold from the rest of the extracts.
But Mr Okurut said mercury contains toxics that whenever miners get into contact with, it affects them directly and they carry the same toxins to water sources, thereby escalating the situation.
Currently, there are several artisan miners earning a living from gold mining in Busia, Namayingo, Mubende, Buhweju, and Moroto districts among others.
The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development estimates that at least 100 to 150 metric tons of mercury are used to amalgamate gold from the ore per year.
“We intend to evolve an action plan to assess the extent to which mercury has been used targeting artisanal miners on how we can either reduce its usages, ” he said.
The Global Environment Facility through the United Nations Environment Programme is funding actions aimed at reducing mercury use to a tune of $300,000 (about Shs1.08b) for the next two years.
Mr James Mulolo, the project coordinator from African Institute, told Daily Monitor that the baseline studies will take place in eight countries across Africa to investigate the magnitude of mercury poisoning and also find a solution on how to reduce or eliminate the use of mercury.
In her address, the Nema deputy executive director, Ms Christine Akello, called on the private sector to invest in the mining sector to regulate mercury use.