Chronicle Editor
Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
THE Chamber of Mines in Zimbabwe has said that mining industry prospects for 2020 are brighter, underpinned by on-going reforms being implemented by the Government in response to the sector’s challenges.
In an interview on the sidelines of the Mimosa long service and superior performance awards in Zvishavane last Friday, Chamber of Mines president Ms Elizabeth Nerwande, who was also the guest of honour, said the future of mining was positive despite declining output in the first six months of the year.
“As the chamber we’ve been working well with relevant ministries having inter-ministerial meetings lobbying to have the challenges facing the sector addressed.
“We have seen an improvement in listening to our concerns by Government like what the Minister of Finance (Professor Mthuli Ncube) did in the 2019 mid-term national budget,” she said.
“For the first time, we have seen almost 40 percent of the issues that we submitted towards the national budget being addressed.
“So, we can say the outlook for 2020 is looking positive for as long as we carry on with this meaningful lobbying and sitting down and addressing real issues.”
Ms Nerwande said Government had taken heed of the miners’ concerns about royalties where in the past royalties were worked out in a manner that almost double-taxed miners. She said royalties were now being treated as an expense, thus, avoiding double taxation of players.
She said the first six months of the year saw a decline in mineral output across the board mainly due to issues of retentions, power outages and policy inconsistency.
“We haven’t been getting adequate retention and what this does is that it reduces our capital flows and also now there are demands that we must pay certain taxes in US dollars, so the issue of retention is still a challenge,” she said.
“Secondly, power outages have been very significant and very disruptive to mining operations. On policy inconsistency, we have said we need a lot of consistency because this affects the issue of pricing and we buy things from a number of suppliers.
“The whole issue of low stream and upstream linkages and the disparities in terms of the exchange rate. We earn forex but sometimes when we are going to pay suppliers it’s on interbank rate and the person whom we are buying from is using the parallel market rate so we have to close the gap and that loss is quite significant.”
To achieve the US$12 billion mining economy target by 2023, Ms Nerwande said there was a need to address the challenges facing the mining sector and the Chamber of Mines will continue advocating for optimum conditions that promote mining activities.
Meanwhile, Ms Nerwande has hailed Mimosa Mining Company for continuously hosting the long-service and superior performance awards saying most companies in the country were no longer honouring their workers.
“Being privy to what other companies are doing, I can tell you that many companies have not been able to do this consistently, hence you should be proud of the achievement,” she said.
“This culture of celebrating employees is a good motivation to improve performance and also help you to reflect and rededicate yourself to your work.”
Zimbabwe has three operational platinum mines and these are Mimosa, Zimplats in Mhondoro-Ngezi, Mashonaland West province and Unki in Shurugwi, Midlands province.
Ms Nerwande said of late, there have been new players in the country’s platinum sector and challenged Mimosa to maintain its position as one of the market leaders.
“I urge you as one of the three platinum mining companies to do your part and contribute to the envisaged Government target of a US$12 billion mining sector economy by 2023.
“Platinum is expected to generate US$3 billion of this US$12 billion and this means that Mimosa also has a part to play to contribute towards achieving this target,” she said.
Last year, President Mnangagwa officiated at the groundbreaking ceremony of Karo Resources’ US$4,2 billion platinum investment project in Mhondoro-Ngezi.
Under the first phase of the platinum project, it is envisaged that 3,6 million tonnes of ore and 350 000 ounces of platinum group of metals will be produced in 2020, and output is further expected to improve to 14,4 million tonnes of ore and 1,4 million ounces of platinum group of metals in 2023. — @okazunga
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