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Corruption in the Mining Sector: Preliminary Overview 401
• No one interviewed was personally aware of any official being bribed
to overlook a license breach. However, the respondents acknowledged
it as a clear possibility.
The survey revealed the following perceptions:
• Out of the 19 people who completed the survey, six (32 percent) were
aware of bribery or fraud in relation to the operation of licenses.
• Two were aware of bribery or fraud from their own experiences, three
from their organizations’ experiences, and four from rumor.
• Five believed that such bribery or fraud took place at the federal government
level, six at the regional level, and two at the city level.
These results suggest that current preventive mechanisms are not
adequate.
Risk rating: High
The actual risk in Ethiopia that mining companies may be breaching mining
conditions at the federal license level is considered to be high.
Recommendations to mitigate risks
• The number of inspectors should be materially increased.
• Training of inspectors should be increased.
• The number of inspector visits to each license area should be increased
substantially. The more frequent the visits, the more difficult it will be
for mining companies to breach mining conditions on a routine basis.
The number of visits should depend on the importance of the mine in
terms of revenue and environmental and social impact. A small, lowvalue
and low-impact mine would justify fewer inspector visits than a
large, high-value, high-impact mine. On some very large mines, a fulltime
government inspector stationed at the mine may be appropriate.
Expert advice could be sought from a government with high experience
of mine control in inaccessible locations (for example, Australia or
Canada) regarding a suitable inspection regime.
• The inspector visits to each license area should be long enough to properly
inspect as much of the mine area as is practicable.
• Consideration should be given to basing inspectors close to where a
number of licenses are located. This would reduce travel time between
visits and make more visits possible.