Independent Commission for Mines and Minerals is an independent institution which its responsibility is implementation of the Law on Mines and Minerals, Law on Safety at Work in Mining Activity and Mining Strategy 2012-2025 of the Republic of Kosovo and it reports to the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo. Except implementation of the mining legislation, the ICMM is committed as well to implement governmental policies related to mining sector, which are documents that create real opportunity for development of business, rational use of mining resources, safety and security at work and environmental protection.
Despite the efforts for development of mining sector, there are still challenges that shall be eliminated through inter-institutional cooperation, especially the elimination of legal collisions, the reduction of bureaucracy, the increase of transparency, accountability etc.
Independent Commission for Mines and Minerals held an information meeting with enterprises in mining sector on 21 February.
ICMM in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, Kosovo Forestry Agency and Ministry of Local Government Administration – the Association of Municipalities organized the next workshop which its duties was to present the “Instruction for good management of mining and environmental activities”.
ICMM organized the second information meeting with enterprises in mining sector on 13 December 2019.
ICMM actually manages 665 mining entities from which 180 are Exploration Licenses, 199 Mining Licenses and 286 Special Operation Permits.
During 2019 there are issued 255 in total Licenses and Permits, from these 85 Exploration Licenses, 52 Mining Licenses and 118 Special Operation Permits.
1. According to commodities Exploration Licenses
| K-2 hard rock | 55 |
| K-3 sand and gravel | 6 |
| Industrial material | 9 |
| Metallic minerals | 15 |
| Total | 85 |
2. According to commodities Mining Licenses
| K-2 hard rock | 32 |
| K-3 Industrial material | 12 |
| Industrial material | 2 |
| Metallic minerals | 4 |
| Coal & bitumen | 2 |
| Total | 52 |
3. According to type Special Operation Permits
| Asphalt base | 5 |
| Concrete base | 54 |
| Sieving plant | 5 |
| Crusher – Separation | 54 |
| Total | 118 |
Closed licenses because of the loss of criteria according to the Law on Mines and Minerals are 8 Exploration Licenses and 13 Mining Licenses
As well applications for closure of licenses after expiry of mining term have been reviewed during 2019. Number of licenses closed according to the Law on Mines and Minerals are 9 enterprises from them 5 have negative reports whereas 4 have positive reports.
Number of licenses that have extended licenses or guarantees is 13.
Field inspections
During 2019, ICMM Inspectorate has had an action to implement Operative Plan for prevention and cease of illegal operations together with Kosovo Police, Inspectorate of Environments, Inspectorate of Forestry ad Municipal Inspectorates. Upon completion of this action, tapes to cease the work have been put in 194 illegal operations sites, 99 separation plants, 16 mining, 78 concrete and asphalt bases and one processing plant.
According to the nature of the inspections, the Inspectorate has carried out these field inspections:
• Request for massive blasting total 605
• Permits for massive blasting total 536
• Overall number of joint inspections according to operational plan total 505
• Enterprises with orders to cease mining activity total 194
• Applications of enterprises received by ICMM after visits during the operational plan total 58
• Illegal operation reports after re-inspection total 27
• Illegal operation reports for 2019 total 49
• Seizures of trucks with lignite total 13
• Daily inspections total 488
• Regular annual inspections total 20.
Injuries have been evidenced during 2019 according to the following table:
| Injuries for 2019 | Underground Mines “Trepça” | KEK | New CO Ferronickeli | Sharr Cem | Mining Licenses and Special Operation Permits |
| Injuries with fatality | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Collective injuries | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Serious injuries | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Minor injuries | 77 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
During 2019, the ICMM forwarded 47 criminal charges against illegal operators in the mining sector to the Prosecution, 54 administrative fines for illegal operations and 109 proposal for executions, whereas 53 appeals have been received during 2019 from which 41 have been reviewed whereas 12 are in procedure.
Revenues for 2019
Since its beginning of its work as an independent agency, the ICMM from year to year has made progress in increasing revenues from royalties, this as an indicator showing the increase of investment in the mining sector. From 31,170,000€ planned revenues for 2019, 30,254,452.76€ were collected (or expressed in percentage 97.06%).
Objectives 2020
ICMM foresees to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of its duties and responsibilities by continuing the upgrade of internal control system and governance in general and specific objectives in particular:
– Implementation of mining legislation, policies and mining strategy
– Licensing of mining enterprises in compliance with LMM, the mineral resources management plan, mining strategy and the sustainable utilization of mineral recourses
– Monitoring, inspection and also implementation of all Laws related to mining sector by the licensed enterprises and implementation of action plan to prevent and prohibit illegal operators
– Attraction of investors through promotions of mining potential that Kosovo has and offers
– Increase the level of transparency, communication and upgrade of information technology system in order to enable efficiently work in ICMM and provide services to investors, companies and citizens.
– Prevention and prohibitions of the informal economy in the mining field.
The challenges in the future
Taking into account the rights and responsibilities specified in the LMM and other general rules on the one hand and undertaking activities to implement them in practice and the concepts of development trends in this field, we can consider as a special challenge for the RKS institutions and as well for the ICMM.
We can distinguish challenges to achieve the objectives set for the future as following:
– Approval of the Law on Mines and Minerals (with amendments) will create safety and facilitation for the companies interested for investments in mining sector in the Republic of Kosovo
– Prevention of the informal economy (prevention and prohibition of illegal mining activities, illegal operations) and sequestration of means and their mineral commodities
– Increase the quality and safety at work in mining operations. Although the function of the mining sector in Kosovo is accompanied by good security, it still remains a challenge for the Inspectorate of Mines to adopt and implement the technical and security standards applied in the EU countries with cooperation with the relevant institutions
– Failure to treat on time the cases submitted to Courts. Penal sanctions imposed by the Courts are not reaching the effect to prevent the prohibition of illegal operations
– Drafting and approval of the sub-normative acts necessary and indispensable for the implementation of the LMM
– Continuous implementation of activities deriving from the implementation of the Mining Strategy and the Mineral Resource Management Plan.
– Continuous implementation of activities deriving from the implementation of mining policies.
Best regards
Independent Commission for Mines and Minerals
Tel: +383 (0) 38 240 252
Fax: +383 (0) 38 245 844
E-mail: icmm@kosovo-mining.org
Web: www.kosovo-mining.org
Address: Armend Daci No.1
Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo
