Ziyad bin Ali al Baloushi, director, legal department and head of the violations committee at the Public Authority for Mining, has said that minerals are a state property and its exploitation without obtaining a license will be lead to a serious legal action.
He added that seven companies have been referred to the Public Prosecution for the infringement of public funds and the seizure of minerals without a license. The value of financial claims from these irregularities put forward by the authority is RO3 million, from which 684,000 has been recovered as a result of settlement with one of the violating companies. The rest of violations are are still under investigation by the competent authorities.
A new strategy has been adopted to settle these issues through the violations committee before referring them to the competent judicial authorities and to give the companies a period of 60 days to settle these violations that is estimated to be around RO1.5 million.
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