On 18 February this year, management at the Kayelekera uranium mine in northern Malawi circulated a notice to employees and contractors assuring them that the site’s water supply was safe.
“Please be advised that the latest water quality test results have been received,” the notice said. It added that the water “meets the required standards and is safe for use and consumption” and instructed staff to continue using it as normal.
Days later, a district water and sanitation audit and Lotus Resources’ subsequent response to it, painted a more contested picture.
According to a report dated 2 March, the mine had been supplying workers with highly turbid water and recorded uranium readings above Malawi’s drinking-water limit, while a localised outbreak of waterborne illness was noted at the camp.
Lotus, however, said the Karonga district council’s district coordinating team on water, sanitation and hygiene did not itself collect samples or undertake analysis during its 27 February audit.
The gap between what mine management told workers on 18 February and what public health officials later documented or said they reviewed, has raised fresh questions about worker safety, regulatory oversight and environmental controls at a mine that has resumed production to serve the resurgent North American nuclear fuel market.
Kayelekera is operated by Lotus Africa, an 85%-owned subsidiary of ASX-listed Lotus Resources. The Malawian government holds the remaining 15%. After being placed on care and maintenance in 2014 amid weak uranium prices, the mine resumed production in August 2025.
Its restart was presented as part of a broader uranium revival. Lotus has since secured binding supply agreements for yellowcake into North American markets through 2029.
But the audit suggests that, as production ramps up, basic protections for workers may have come under strain.
The district audit focused on water sources in current use at the mine, reviewed water-quality testing procedures and results, evaluated water-safety and monitoring practices, assessed wastewater systems and examined disease surveillance, particularly in relation to diarrhoeal disease.
Lotus said that, as of 16 March, it had not received formal, approved findings from the audit. The company said it had instead seen an unsigned, as yet unapproved version of the report, which it regards as preliminary.
Kayelekera abstracts raw water from the nearby Mswanga River through a piped supply system. That water is supposed to pass through sedimentation ponds, tanks and clarifiers before disinfection. Auditors said that process appeared to have been compromised.
Residual free chlorine levels were recorded at zero across all sampling points, the report said. Malawi’s standard for drinking water requires residual chlorine of between 0.20mg/l and 0.50mg/l. That matters because chlorine is a basic indicator of whether disinfection is taking place.
The audit said the absence of chlorine suggested treatment was either ineffective or not being routinely carried out. During a site inspection, auditors also reported seeing no chlorine containers at the treatment plant.
The most serious finding concerned uranium. Two water readings recorded between 17 and 22 February – the same period during which Lotus Africa issued its assurance to workers – showed uranium concentrations of 43 parts per billion and 35 parts per billion.
Both exceeded Malawi’s maximum allowable limit of 30 parts per billion. Lotus cited the World Health Organisation’s provisional guideline value of 30 micrograms per litre for uranium in drinking water but added that in the last three weeks uranium levels had been below 20 parts per billion.
The audit also found turbidity levels consistently above the recommended maximum of 5 nephelometric turbidity units for treated drinking water. High turbidity not only makes water visibly dirty; it can also reduce the effectiveness of disinfection by shielding microorganisms.
The public health implications were not theoretical.
Auditors said mine medical records showed 28 cases of gastroenteritis among workers in January and February. They added that the number was likely an undercount because roughly 80% of the workforce is non-resident and many workers, including contractors and temporary staff, seek treatment off site through the Medical Aid Society of Malawi. That reporting gap, the audit noted, makes it difficult to establish the true burden of diarrhoeal disease among employees.
Lotus said it supports workers through on-site medical facilities and what it described as international-standard medical care. The problems were not limited to drinking water.
Kayelekera also operates wastewater systems for mine effluent and domestic sewage. Although auditors said the infrastructure was broadly adequate in design, they reported frequent domestic wastewater spillages around latrines and treatment ponds.
Those spillages were attributed to poor operational control and overflows in containment ponds. The audit warned that such failures could contaminate surface water and expose nearby communities to additional health risks.
The report also points to wider regulatory non-compliance. Under Malawi’s drinking-water rules, supplies must be tested for microbiological contamination, including E. coli, faecal streptococci and total coliforms.
Auditors said Lotus Africa had carried out no microbial testing, focusing instead largely on physical and chemical parameters.
Lotus said that increased dosing, including chlorine, has now been adopted and that routine monitoring is being implemented for physical and chemical parameters as well as microbial testing. Further improvements are under consideration, including ultraviolet treatment.
The mine, auditors said, also lacked a comprehensive water safety plan. There was no documented maintenance schedule for treatment infrastructure and little evidence of systematic risk assessment from water abstraction to consumption.
Perhaps most significantly, the audit said no documentary evidence was provided to show that the treatment system had been certified or approved by the relevant state authority for human consumption.
The official response from district authorities was unusually direct. In a 27 February letter to the mine’s general manager, the Karonga district commissioner Willard Mwambo said:
“The findings reveal that the drinking water currently being supplied to workers does not meet acceptable standards.”
The letter continued: “Collectively, these conditions present a clear public health risk to workers, particularly with regard to exposure to waterborne diseases such as diarrhoeal illnesses.”
The commissioner ordered the company to provide an alternative supply of safe drinking water immediately and to maintain that arrangement until independent laboratory tests confirmed the system was consistently producing potable water.
The mine was also given seven days to upgrade the system to minimum national standards and verify the improvements through an accredited laboratory.
In response to detailed questions, Lotus Resources managing director Greg Bittar said he did not intend to answer each question individually but said the company’s established water-supply and treatment systems and its routine monitoring processes, were being continually improved, with the health and safety of employees, the community and the environment remaining its “absolute priority”.
Bittar said bottled drinking water is being provided to all site personnel until further notice and that additional improvement steps are intended to strengthen engineering standards and operational practices.
The National Water Resources Authority (NWRA) conducted an onsite audit on 12 March and collected samples for laboratory analysis in Lilongwe, with results still pending, he said.
Masozi Kasambara, the spokesperson for the NWRA, said the authority had travelled to the site with other government agencies for an investigation and collected samples for laboratory tests to establish “precise results for the status quo”.
Kasambara said the exercise was still under way because “there are a number of parameters under scrutiny” and that the NWRA would provide “comprehensive feedback for public consumption” once standard scientific procedures had been completed.
“There are also time variations for the procedures to be fully exhausted and have results attained,” he said. “Once this is done, you will be reached out to.”
In its earlier 18 February notice, however, the company told supervisors to relay the safety message in toolbox meetings and said the site laboratory would continue monitoring the water.
The episode exposes a wider contradiction at the heart of the energy transition: strategic minerals are increasingly marketed as essential to a lower-carbon future, while the local conditions under which they are produced often remain poorly scrutinised.
Lotus Resources has presented Kayelekera as part of the uranium supply chain supporting global decarbonisation. The mine’s mineral resource is estimated at more than 51 million pounds of uranium oxide, with an expected operating life of at least a decade.
In March last year, Reuters reported that Lotus Africa had signed a binding agreement to supply 600 000 pounds of uranium to a major North American utility.
That may please buyers seeking to diversify supply. But the district audit and the company’s own response suggest that, at minimum, the mine has been grappling with serious concerns over potable water quality, sanitation failures and worker health surveillance.
For investors, regulators and off-takers, the implications extend beyond one mine camp in northern Malawi. If a major uranium operation cannot consistently demonstrate safe water for its own workforce, broader questions about environmental controls and governance become harder to dismiss.
Lotus said its board and management recognise their obligations to shareholders and other stakeholders to maintain robust corporate governance, arguing that additional improvement steps should yield practical recommendations for any operational weaknesses identified.
The audit recommended urgent staff training on water-quality monitoring and the immediate disinfection of wastewater spillages around domestic treatment ponds. It also directed that compliance inspections be conducted quarterly, with a follow-up visit scheduled for the third week of March at the company’s expense.
Until independent testing confirms the water is safe, district authorities have made their position plain.
Lotus said bottled water will remain in place while monitoring and treatment upgrades continue; the NWRA said its laboratory work is still under way. As Mwambo, the district commissioner wrote, continued use of the existing supply “poses an unacceptable risk to the health of workers”.
Lotus Resources’ Kayelekera mine faces scrutiny after an audit revealed water safety and sanitation failures affecting workers
