Gov’t expects mid-June ruling on Lafayette mine

First posted 05:09am (Mla time) June 02, 2006
Reuters

http://news.inq7.net/archive_article/index.php?ver=1&index=1&story_id=3503

THE government said Thursday it was likely to decide in two weeks on the fate of a zinc and copper mine run by Australia's Lafayette Mining Ltd. after an investigation into two cyanide spills.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's government wants to revive the mining industry to bring in foreign investment, cut debt and reduce poverty. But it faces tough opposition from environmental groups and influential Catholic bishops.

A fact-finding committee convened by Arroyo after the spills in October said the government should shut down Lafayette's local operations and order a moratorium on mining on Rapu-Rapu island, about 350 kilometers southeast of Manila.

The committee, led by a bishop, also said the government should review the country's mining law, particularly the provision allowing foreigners to own 100 percent of projects.

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Angelo Reyes said his department continued to consult mining experts and academics as it evaluated whether to allow the Lafayette mine to reopen.

"We are as interested in coming up with a decision as anybody else," Reyes said in a television interview. "I would think the middle of this month."

"Whatever you do with Lafayette delivers a message to the mining industry, to people at large, to the environmentalists."

Some estimates value the Philippines' mineral wealth at one trillion dollars. But many foreign investors have been put off by political turmoil, corruption, insurgencies in the resource-rich south and opposition from bishops and indigenous groups.

Lafayette, which says the spills had minimal environmental impact, was the first foreign company to develop and run a mine in the Philippines in almost four decades after the government opened the sector to full foreign ownership in 2004.