Major crackdown on unlicensed mining companies

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.