adminPUTRAJAYA, Sept 25 (Bernama) — Mining industry players need to leverage digital technology to strengthen governance and improve efficiency, particularly in monitoring and reporting, while reducing the risk of leakages.
Senior lecturer at the School of Materials and Mineral Resources Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Assoc Prof Dr Mohd Hazizan Mohd Hashim said technologies such as geotagging, real-time monitoring and blockchain could help ensure that the movement and origin of raw materials are tracked more effectively.
He said these technologies could also enable data from mining operations to be recorded and transmitted directly to the relevant authorities, reducing reliance on manual processes that could be vulnerable to manipulation.
“If digital data is transmitted directly from the weighing system to the state government responsible for calculating royalties and taxes, the federal government and industry players can also access the data.
“This can reduce the risk of data manipulation and allow for real-time monitoring,” he told Bernama after presenting his study, entitled ‘Memperkasa Tatakelola, Integriti dan Antirasuah Dalam Industri Perlombongan di Malaysia’, here today.
The presentation was among the highlights of the fifth National Governance, Integrity and Anti-Corruption Research Conference 2026, which was opened by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Chief Commissioner Datuk Seri Abd Halim Aman.
Mohd Hazizan said field studies and interviews conducted as part of the research found that several companies in the industry had begun adopting digitalisation, which had helped reduce leakages and improve reporting efficiency.
However, he said Malaysia should not be considered technologically behind, as various technologies were already available, with the main challenge being the readiness of industry players and government agencies to adopt them on a wider scale.
“The technology is already available. The question is whether industry players, agencies, state governments and the federal government see it as something that needs to be implemented urgently,” he said.
He also cited the experience of several countries, including Indonesia, which uses an operations centre or war room to monitor mining activities comprehensively.
He said such monitoring systems not only allowed productivity to be tracked, but could also use certain technologies to detect safety risks, such as when drivers became drowsy while operating vehicles.
Meanwhile, Mohd Hazizan said another gap that needed to be addressed was the lack of integration between implementing agencies and agencies with authority over land use at the state and federal levels.
He said coordination between agencies needed to be improved, particularly in terms of assessment timelines and decision-making processes, to expedite matters affecting the industry.
“This will, in turn, boost investor and industry confidence to participate more actively in Malaysia’s mining and mineral production sector,” he said.
Besides digitalisation and inter-agency coordination, the midstream value chain was also identified as an area that could be further strengthened in Malaysia’s mining industry.
“If we look at the rare earth element (REE) industry, Malaysia may already have a good foundation at the upstream level and has potential downstream, but there is still considerable room to strengthen the midstream value chain,” he said.
— BERNAMA
