Lubango - Entrepreneurs in central Huila province, involved in the exploitation and sale of ornamental stones complained on Friday of the difficulties they have been experiencing for five months due to the "excessive bureaucracy" in the issuance of export licenses, which as of 2024 has no longer been issued locally, but exclusively in the country's capital, Luanda.
The operators, who requested a meeting with the local government earlier this week, reiterated for the second time the need for the province to reissue export licenses for the sale of ornamental stones, considering that the business has been under threat since Luanda took over the exclusivity in September 2024.
According to the operators, licenses had always been issued in Huila, where these minerals are exploited, but the Ministry decided that they should be issued by the National Agency for Mineral Resources created in 2020, which is located in Luanda, in accordance with the Joint Executive Decree that establishes the legal regime for fees and emoluments applied to the mining sector, which also has supervisory authority.
The agents stressed that the slowness of the process has generated high costs related to overlapping ship stays and the export process, most of which are inherent to the commitment made to suppliers, as they have to travel to Luanda each time they want to issue the licences.
Armindo Matos, an operator of the sector, stressed the need to reverse the situation and maintain the previous decentralization of services, since there is still a concentration in Luanda that only harms the economy and makes contacts difficult.
Businessman Luís Lú, on his turn, said the centralization has paralyzed part of the economy for five months and that they are currently unable to export because of the bureaucracy involved in processing export documents.
"We currently have almost 50 containers at Namibe port because it takes so long for the licenses to be issued and to make matters worse, customers are pressuring us to send the product, but without the licenses we can't," he said.
For the past 24 years, stone export licenses had been issued in Lubango, however the change made in September has jeopardized the departure of three ships carrying granite to foreign countries, costing operators more than 900 million kwanzas in losses.
China, India, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Thailand are the destinations for Huila's main product.
EM/MS/AMP
