…848 Billion Kwacha to be invested in Poland processing plant
…Mkango scheme to spirit out Songwe rare earths
…Mutharika’s Executive Order Number 2 thrown to the dogs
While millions of young people in Malawi are waking up daily to the harsh reality of unemployment and economic hardship, natural resources extracted from the local soil are positioned to drive high-tech industrial development and high-paying jobs over 8,000 kilometers away in Central Europe, Poland.
According to technical disclosures regarding the Songwe Hill Rare Earths project in Phalombe, operated by Canadian firm Mkango Resources through its local outfit, Lancaster Exploration, the local mine is set to offer local Malawians crumbs while the main steak is to be enjoyed overseas before powering industries in the US.
Under the project structure disclosed by the developers, operations at the Songwe Hill site in Phalombe will be confined strictly to open-pit mining, crushing, flotation, and preliminary washing.
These basic processes are only designed to extract an unrefined intermediate compound known as Mixed Rare Earth Carbonate (MREC).
In an update published by the United States International Development Finance Corporation, Mkango will not be processing the compound in Malawi but will instead be shipping the unrefined substance to Mozambique before spiriting it out to Puławy, Poland, in Central Europe.
In Puławy, Mkango has partnered with Polish chemical giant Grupa Azoty to construct a state-of-the-art separation plant which is valued at US$ 212 million (about 848 billion Malawi Kwacha at the prevailing rate of MK4000 to 1 US$). This multi-billion facility in Poland is where the true value-addition, chemical refining, and high-tech separation of neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium will take place.
While Malawians might benefit some job opportunities from this arrangement, it will mostly be short-term roles created at the local extraction site in Phalombe that will predominantly consist of low-wage, physical labor. They are expected to be hired for basic site clearing, manual digging, security guarding, site driving, and low-level equipment maintenance.
Poland, on the other hand, gets to benefit the true long-term industrial reward funded by natural resources dug out of Malawian earth. A mining expert who spoke on condition of anonymity told Malawi24 that the facility in Poland has the higher chances of generating hundreds of high-paying career opportunities for chemical engineers, metallurgists, specialized plant operators, and industrial lab technicians.
11 thoughts on “MALAWI MINERALS TO CREATE JOBS IN POLAND”
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That’s good that we malawians we have minerals but the sad part is we’re exploring our minerals to oversees of which we will not benefit much for this minerals only Malawian leaders and the investors they’re the ones who is going to benefits.Why don’t we refined our minerals at our own country? Wake up malawians.
This is a great exploitation to many Malawians. I hope our president will look into this again. The most benefited are the top officials, so how can you expect corruption to end, this is the effect of corruption in our mining sector.
Not good enough Malawi to send the
Stuff abroad to be processed..Why not processing here?? Of course they can also creat jobs right here in Mw.
Very significant to the development of the country
If we were brave enough, this is not the time to exploit these minerals. We need stable power supply in abundance before we can see this unfair arrangement as unfair. We are determined not to develop ourselves as such it will be very difficult, even after a century from now, to truly benefit from what our Gods meant for us under our feet
This is a great news. I hope this project will change lives of many malawian for the better .
It’s unfortunate to hear that there is such level of exploitation. It’s stated and clear that this venture will benefit the polish government and people of Poland. Very sad and short sightediness of our government to enter into such an arrangement. If this is the sort of arrangement that will be there I am strongly advising that it should be stopped and abandoned. For how long shall we cerebrate being taken advantage of.
This arrangement has to be cancelled . Mineral purifying should be done in Malawi or else pack and go. Burkona Faso is doing the same. No unprocessed mi eral leaves the country.
Value addition has to be done here in Malawi, then we can build capacity
So how do stop this overexploitation of our minerals resources by selfish investors who care nothing about us?
We need more jobs in Malawi. A great move