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Botswana to invest in gold mine rehabilitation
14:43:18 GMT, 01 March, 2007
An investment of more than ten million Botswana pula (£154,000) will be directed towards rehabilitating the former Monarch gold mine shafts in Francistown in the north-east of Botswana, the department of mines has announced.

The disused mine shafts have been criticised as dangerous and unsightly, but renovation is expected to resolve the ongoing safety issues.

And the new project, which will include backfilling visible shaft openings with rock fragments and cement, is planned to map out over six to eight months.

Although incremental rehabilitation programmes were implemented between 1985 and 2005, many of the shafts rehabilitated later collapsed.

The soil surrounding the mine shafts has been undermined by taxing weather conditions including heavy rainfall as well as by underground work in the area, while the challenge of rehabilitating the mines is accentuated by the lack of records about the location, extent and depth of drilling on former sites.

Roll out for the rehabilitation project will take several years, with budgetary constraints forcing the government to delay rehabilitating some mines during the financial year 2007-08.