Untold story of Kenya’s biggest mining contract

Mining Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala

Kenya: A director of Erad Suppliers seeking to auction assets of the cereals board over a Sh600 million debt owns shares in a mining firm whose licence was cancelled on Monday.

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Documents in the possession of The Standard show that Mr Jacob Juma owns 30 per cent of Cortec Mining Kenya, a subsidiary of Canadian Pacifi c Wildcat Resources (PAW), a mineral exploration company.
Cortec Mining received the licence from the Government on March 26, the same day that the Supreme Court began hearing a petition by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga against the March 4 election of President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The licence was issued even as Kenyatta, then President-elect, ordered all ministers and Permanent Secretaries in the former Grand Coalition Government not to approve any contracts or licences on behalf of the incoming Jubilee government.
Cortec is among 31 mining firms whose licences were revoked by Mining Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala on Monday.
And it is now emerging that the discovery of niobium and rare earths in Kwale is at the centre of the cancellation of mining licences, The Standard has established.
Just a few days prior to its licence being cancelled, Cortec had announced the discovery of niobium and rare earths minerals whose value it estimated to be more than Sh51.2 trillion.
Managing Director David Anderson claimed the mineral find is the world’s sixth-largest reserve of the rare metal with a mine-life of up to 18 years.
Rare earths is used in modern technology including cars, phones, diode lights among others. Niobium is specifically used to make alloys for jet engines and to strengthen steel.
But Cortec has been in the crosshairs of government especially given its ownership structure and the nature of its licence.
A list of cancelled licences from the ministry singles out Cortec and another nondescript firm — Wanjala Mining Company Ltd — as operating under a special mining licence described as “the first of its kind.”