Salt wrongly extracted in Balkh, claim processing factories

MAZAR-I-SHARIF (Pajhwok): A number of salt processing factories in northern Balkh province claim salt is being extracted in a non-standard manner, urging the government to standardize the process.

On the other hand, officials of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum (MoMP) say they have recently prevented illegal extracting of salt and inked new agreements with domestic firms to develop the mines in a standard manner.

Some salt factories in the province emphasize on standard extraction and processing of salt.

A Large number salt mines exist in the northern zone apart from coal and oil mines.

However, some salt producers in Balkh asked MoMP to ensure contractors had the capacity to skillfully extract slat.

Ismail Mullahzadeh, owner of a salt processing factory in Mazar-i-Sharif, said salt was extracted in a non-standard way from reservoirs since years.

He said Afghanistan sat on large salt reserves and the government should pay serious attention to the extraction and processing of salt in the country.

He added: “We want the MoMP to hand over salt mines to professional firms to extract salt in a standard way.”

Mullahzadeh, who established a nsalt processing factory by investing five million US dollars 13 years ago and has employed more than 1,000 people, said if supported, they could export salt abroad as well.

He said his factory has the capacity to process 168,000 tonnes of healthy salt per year.

Mohammad Rufian, another salt factory owner, claimed salt from a number of mines was being extracted in a non-standard way in the country and asked the caretaker government to hand over salt mines to professional factories.

Meanwhile, Abdul Sattar Sediqi, an expert on natural resources in Balkh, told Pajhwok Afghanistan’s salt met 90 percent of international standard norms.

He said: “Afghanistan has a lot of natural resources and mines, the salt found in northern provinces meets international norms because it  has sodium chloride, potassium, calcium and magnesium are 99 percent in the composition of this salt.

On the other hand, MoMP officials said they had prevented non-standard extraction of salt.

Hamayoon Afghan, spokesman for MoMP, told Pajhwok agreements had been inked with domestic firms a few months ago to extract salt in a professional way.

He said Afghanistan sat on large salt and other resources, however salt was imported from abroad in the past.

He added the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) had imposed ban on import of salt from foreign countries.

kk/ma