More than 30 Civil Society organizations and activists deeply showed their concerns over the current situation of Afghanistan’s Natural Resources and the Aynak copper mine contract.
In a panel discussion which was organized by Integrity Watch on August 28, and facilitated by the Natural Resources Monitoring Network (NRMN), the panelists and the participants called on the Ministry of Mine and Petroleum to publish the Aynak contract as soon as possible and to push the contractor to start the extraction process. They also raised their concerns that a group of favored, “Mafia like”, individuals who have connections within the Ministry of Mines could pave the way for illegal extraction in Afghanistan.
Moreover, the participants emphasized that if the ministry does not respond to their demands, they will follow the issue through various civil movements.
In the province of Logar Civil Society activists stated that the communities around the Aynak mine are the real victims of this contract and that after going through a series of detrimental changes, the Aynak contract is not being utilized in order to give anything back to those affected communities.