National Assembly approves pre-legislative consultation on ten issues related to mining

The National Assembly, on January 4, approved the holding of a pre-legislative consultation on ten issues related to mining in the country.

During the first debate on the draft reforms to the Mining Law, the legislators took advantage of their interventions to censor the illegal mining that caused a new sinkhole in the Zaruma canton on December 16, which caused evictions of families and damage to the heritage of the town.

The pre-legislative consultation, according to the resolution of the plenary session, will be on the following topics:

• Protected areas, in the context of mining
• Mining concessions
• Metallurgical mining waste
• Water treatment
• Closure of mining operations
• Right to information, participation and consultation
• Granting of mining concessions
• Special procedure for consulting the peoples
• Formation of citizen oversight
• Ancestral mining

According to the regulations, the pre-legislative consultation is carried out with the purpose of reaching an agreement or obtaining consent about the proposed legislative measures. It allows consulting communes, communities, indigenous peoples and nationalities, the Afro-Ecuadorian people and the Montuvian people on specific issues included in the bills to be issued by the National Assembly.

Once the pre-legislative consultation has been approved, the Biodiversity Commission within five days will deliver to the President of the National Assembly, Guadalupe Llori, the substantive issues duly substantiated and that must be approved by the Legislative Administration Council (CAL), to In order to proceed with the immediate convocation of the popular consultation.

Legislator Carlos Zambrano (UNES) commented that the problem that Zaruma is going through is related to the control of the exclusion zone by the corresponding bodies such as the Mining Regulation and Control Agency (Arcom), which even has an agency, but that Unfortunately, during the Lenín Moreno government, the mines ministry disappeared and merged with another state portfolio.

He regretted that today in the Zaruma canton there are only two technicians who control illegal mining activity, that it is not about the military monitoring the exclusion zone, but that the Government updates the study, since there are 73 kilometers of tunnels in Zaruma, which which is critical.

What the regime must do is provide sufficient resources that exceed $ 40 million to control illegal mining and intervene in the part affected by the sinkholes, in addition to reinforcing the control of mining in populated areas.

Two ministers summoned to the National Assembly on illegal mining in Zaruma

Washington Varela (BAN), president of the Biodiversity and Natural Resources commission, warned that the problem of illegal mining is not only in Zaruma, but in several cantons of the country where control entities do not enforce the law.

He referred to the fact that in the reform of the Mining Law it is important to insist on the pre-legislative consultation contemplated by the Constitution before the adoption of a legislative measure that may affect any of their collective rights related to activities of exploration and exploitation of non-renewable resources such as mining in their territories.

He proposed to the plenary session the processing of ten articles to the Mining Law to enable pre-legislative consultation for mining concessions, protected areas, metallurgical mining waste, water treatment, closure of mining operations and the right to information, participation and consultation.

The reforms promote the transparency of information, the proper management of royalties resulting from mining activity, greater protection of the rights of nature, the proper application of pre-legislative consultation and regulatory development of prior, free and informed consultation, in addition of reforms on the attributions of the Arcom and the competences of the sectoral ministry.

The changes also refer to the disqualification of people for mining activities, previous administrative acts, sanctions for illegal mining activity, staff training, preferential work, water treatment, closure of mining operations and the expiration of a mining operation.

Marlon Cadena of the Democratic Left pointed out that the National Assembly should begin to oversee the actions of the Committee for the Recovery Remediation and Productive Development of the Zaruma and Portovelo Mining Area, created by executive decree 169 in September 2017. What is to be determined must be determined. has done to solve the problem of illegal mining.

He indicated that Zaruma is the harbinger of what mining has meant in the country, that the fact recorded in December in that canton lights up the alerts of what may happen in other cities and throughout the country, if the necessary corrections are not taken. .

That the Assembly must stand on the side of the Zarumeñas families and monitor what will happen to them so that those relocation plans that have been offered are really fulfilled and that it does not remain as something that feeds hope and is not executed. (I)