The Ministry of Mines and Petroleum has shared a list of 1,050 contracts of small mining projects on its website, saying that it is the beginning of its efforts to bring reforms and make public aware about improvements in the key government institution. 

However, according to the list, a considerable number of the projects are in insecure parts of the country which based on analysts, it will make it difficult for the ministry to implement its plans in the areas.

The mines ministry spokesman Abdul Qadeer Mutfi said contracts were shared after months of assessment and that they are part of their commitments they made on accountability and reforms during the Senior Officials Meeting, SOM, meeting this year.

“After this, all the contracts signed by the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum will be shared online in order to ensure reforms and accountability and also to make aware the people, the civil society and the international community about our activities,” Mutfi told TOLOnews.

Monitoring organizations said there is a lack of observation from illegal mining in the country. The watchdog bodies urged the mines ministry to oversee the existing mining contracts as according to them, some mining projects are still ongoing despite their contracts have been reportedly cancelled by Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.

“We cannot expect that the extraction of mineral resources will stop in areas where government has not signed contracts with companies. We have seen the example of this in contracts of extraction of lapis lazuli, marble and other precious and semi-precious,” said Ibrahim Jafari, member of Natural Resources Monitoring Network.

The move comes after Ministry of Mines and Petroleum outlined a roadmap for bringing reforms to the organization and for overcoming illegal mining in Afghanistan.