600 youths get licences

Rumbidzayi Zinyuke Manicaland Bureau
More than 600 youths from Mutasa South constituency have received gold buying licences under an economic empowerment initiative championed by the legislator of the area, Cde Irene Zindi (pictured right).

In an interview with The Herald last week, Cde Zindi said the initiative, that has been running since June this year, was meant to enable the youths to earn a living in the wake of limited employment opportunities.

“We are trying to enable all interested youths in the constituency to secure gold buying licences so that they can generate an income for themselves and not wait for handouts all the time,” she said.

“Inasmuch as we know that the economic environment is not conducive for youths to access loans from banks, I think they still need to be self-reliant. They should work for themselves with the available resources.”

Mutasa district is endowed with numerous gold deposits, which has seen many youths going into artisanal mining.

Cde Zindi said empowering youths with licences was in line with Government policy to engage youths and women in the mining sector.

She said Government, through the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, had given her constituency 288 mining claims for youths and women interested in engaging in mining activities.

Cde Zindi said while Government was working towards formalising artisanal gold miners, she had decided to get them gold buying licences to minimise the hassles encountered when they tried to sell gold to Fidelity Printers.

“We want to avoid instances where youths are harassed by police when they buy gold from the miners,” she said. “They are there to act as a bridge for those digging the gold, but cannot go to sell their gold at Fidelity because they do not have licences.”

Cde Zindi said the main challenge for the youths was capital to buy gold in bulk and realise meaningful revenue.