On 12^th June 2023, the Ministry of Interior organized a workshop with mining, quarry and civil works companies that use blasting materials to address the challenges revealed by the recent joint inspections carried out by MININTER, Rwanda Defence Force (RDF), Rwanda National Police (RNP) and Rwanda Mines, Gas and Petroleum Board (RMB).

In his remarks while opening the workshop, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Interior, Mr. SESONGA Benjamin, said that blasting materials and other related explosives have an essential role in easing and speeding up both mining, quarry and civil works activities which contributes tremendously to the country’s economic and infrastructure development.

He however added that these materials should be cautiously stored since they can lead to accidents, environmental threats and source of internal insecurity in case they are poorly managed.  

 The key challenges revealed by the inspections include Communities neighbouring mining/ quarry sites who  complain about their properties affected by blasting activities, poor condition of stores, companies importing a big quantity of blasting materials compared to their blasting capacity  which leads to expiration of the explosive materials before use, companies using blasting materials meant for a specific project to another project without authorization and  companies  borrowing blasting materials from others without prior authorization.

Other challenges identified include companies that do not have environmentalist to plan for environmental protection, companies with issues in their certificates , companies that  buy explosives without indicator of manufacturing and expiration dates,  companies carrying out blasting activities without authorization,  companies that do not submit monthly blasting reports and  companies exceeding Peak Particle Velocity (PPV) limit (4mm/S near human settlement or 10mm/S far from human settlement) during blasting.

During the workshop, the participants exchanged ideas on identified challenges and came up with recommendations aimed at addressing them.