Attorney General's Office conducted a preventive visit to learn about the problems of mining in Colombia

The Attorney General's Office, through the National Delegate for Preventive Monitoring of Public Service, commissioned the Advisory Group on Mining, Oil and Royalties for determining compliance with the constitutional and legal processes, organization, joint and implementation of the National Agency of Mining.

In fulfillment of this work was carried out at the Geological Survey before the Colombian Institute of Geology and Mining (Ingeominas), a preventive care to check first the way the Plan is being developed in the joint Decongestion to be Ingeominas do with the already established National Mining Agency (ANM). The second objective was to investigate the current status of the administrative procedures of application for legalization of proposals to grant mining licenses applications for temporary authorization.

The findings observed in a preliminary way are mostly associated with procedures Ingeominas rejected or returned by users. Indeed, by January 10 of this year 9925 are presented mining legalization applications, of which 5,688 were rejected.

On the other hand, there are 7,268 current requests for proposals for mining concession contracts, of which 103 have and 102 resolution granting temporary authorizations, that is, only 2.07% of requests were granted.

The prosecution says that in this way is difficult legalization and acted contrary to what was proposed by the Government since early 2011, when President Juan Manuel Santos launched its program known as "mining locomotive", aimed at stimulating the legalization of thousands of miners and reduce environmental and social problems that can generate this illegal activity.

In defense of the legal and constitutional guarantees of citizens, the Advisory Group will continue to advance all the tasks required under the Act to ensure that the splicing process is carried out under legal procedures.