The mining sector deplores the sorry lack of a one-stop-shop (OSS) efficiently taking care of the permitting process where the national government requires a set of documents while local government units require another.
Mining executives represented by their umbrella organization president said the government should set up an OSS for the securing of permits needed to develop the country’s mineral resources.
“Of course, we’d love to have streamlined permits. I think the Department of Energy (DOE) is setting the bar with its one-stop shop and if we can replicate that it will be good (for the industry),” DMCI Mining president Tulsi Das C. Reyes said over the weekend.
According to Reyes, the whole show at the moment is so laboriously bureaucratic as one goes from the Environmental Management Bureau, then the Forest Management Bureau central, the regional directors where one has “a lot of dealings”such that “there is miscommunication between the national and local levels” some of the time.
He said if there were a one-stop shop, this will help clarify some matters on who do to follow as everyone speaks the same language and there is greater clarity.
Government support for the mining industry is even more imperative now that there are investor plans to put up processing plants requiring investments of $1.5 billion.Reyes said Nickel Asia Corp. was the first to put up such a plant many years ago in the 1970s.
“Now you are getting Platinum Group Metals Corp., the Carrascal Nickel Corp., all these second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth miners in the country who now have options to process ore,” Reyes said.He said the Philippines can be competitive and meet demand for resources in the global market that a $1.5 billion dollar processing plant provides apart from creating jobs for Filipinos.
“You can do world-class environmental procedures following all these international companies because the need is there (like) EV vehicles, in a big, big way,” Reyes said.
He said past three administrations have been very progressive in their support for the mining sector.