The Mining Industry Coordination Council (MICC) will conduct an audit of mines located in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) around the fourth quarter of the year, the Department of Finance (DOF) said in a statement yesterday.
The DOF said the Intergovernmental Relations Body (IGRB) has agreed that the MICC, together with representatives and experts from the Bangsamoro government, will conduct the audit on the operations of mines within the Bangsamoro region.
The IGRB said the participation of Bangsamoro government experts and representatives in the audit will provide the body with a baseline on the status of mining activities in the Bangsamoro region and allow the transfer of skills and technology to BARMM in the evaluation of mining operations.
The Bangsamoro government agreed to the inclusion of the mines in the Bangsamoro region in the forthcoming third round of the MICC audit.
The DOF said the audit, targeted to commence in October, will include four mines located in the BARMM.
The evaluation will cover the technical, legal, social, economic and environmental aspects of the mining operations, the same framework used in the first two audits done by the MICC on 50 mining operations across the country starting in 2018, the DOF said.
The interagency MICC was constituted in 2012, but it was only during the Duterte administration that the review or audit of mining operations was initiated by the council.
The first phase of the MICC review was done in February to August 2018, while the second one was conducted from October 2019 to December 2020.
According to the IGRB, experts from the BARMM may also be included in future mining audits outside of the autonomous region to further develop their skills and technical capacity. – Angela Celis
