PRESIDENT Samia Suluhu Hassan has started working on the challenges facing the State Mining Corporation (STAMICO) as she pledged when the corporation marked its 50th anniversary early this month.
The Head of State has appointed Dr Venance Mwase to a position of Director General of the state mining firm.
Prior to his appointment, Dr Mwase was serving in the position in the acting capacity. His appointment became effective on August 23rd this year.
During the commemoration of STAMICO’s 50th anniversary, an event which was graced by Vice President Dr Philip Mpango, some of the challenges presented to the Head of State include unfriendly public procurement procedures, shortage of workers and the corporation’s boss being in acting capacity for too long.
Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee Chairman Jerry Silaa requested the appointing authority to consider promoting the acting DG because he had proved his capability by improving the performance of the corporation.
“STAMICO has mentioned two challenges but there is a third one, Dr Mwase has been in acting capacity for a long time. I call upon the appointing authority to see how they can handle this issue,” Silaa was quoted as saying during the anniversary.
In her message to congratulate STAMICO, President Samia pledged to strengthen the company and address challenges facing it to increase efficiency in its operations.
“Congratulations STAMICO for marking the 50th anniversary, the government will strengthen the corporation and work on the challenges of public procurement procedures and shortage of workers,” President Samia said in her message which was read on her behalf by Dr Mpango.
Silaa further detailed that since 2019 STAMICO had been performing well, noting that since the new DG was appointed the revenue increased from 1.36bn/- in 2018/2019 to 48.9bn/- in 2021/2022.
“The aim is to collect 70.04bn/- in the current fiscal year … the corporation was depending on the government in financing Other Charges (OC) vote by 89 per cent but to date it is independent by 100 per cent,” Silaa argued.
The Committee chairman told the Vice President during the anniversary event that in the previous fiscal year STAMICO paid 1.2bn/- to the government in dividend but today it has paid 2.2bn/- ,adding that the firm plans to pay 5bn/-.
Mr Silaa further said that the corporation currently embarks on large scale coal mining with a contract of 60,000 tonnes and it expects to increase to 100,000 tonnes per month which will generate 4.1bn/-.
Earlier, the then STAMICO Acting DG said that public procurement procedures were not friendly to the corporation, saying its review would help the company to operate efficiently and earn more profit, enabling it to pay more dividend to the government.
The acting DG also said that the corporation was also facing shortage of workers, calling upon the government to employ more workers following an increase in the number of projects to increase efficiency and strengthen their supervision.