Chronicle Editor
Stephen Mpofu, Perspective
THE virtuous, instructive saying above should both inform and catalyse Zimbabweans to harness pedestrian gold mining which is increasingly becoming disastrous in addition to depriving the country of much-sought after forex.
To begin with, our people should, in spite of their different political persuasions, act as one to end once and for all the blueing of gold and other minerals to foreign states, be it in Sadc or elsewhere, which next flog those minerals on the international market to their own benefit while our motherland, the hen that sits and protects the golden eggs in point suffers financial want to propel strategic Government development plans towards the attainment of Vision 2030 which should see our nation flaunting an upper middle income economy ogled by those in similar struggling economies as ours at present.
For a very, very long time journalists including this one have written embassy upon embassy of words in articles published in this and sister media about gold being smuggled across porous borders between Zimbabwe and our neighbouring sister states while our country is deprived of financial return on the vital natural resources in question.
The stories written are meant to exhort Government portfolio holders to take appropriate action to end the rot before the illegal actions contort, or cause faces in the public domain to crack smiles depending on which side of the political bromide those readers are situated.
That the smuggling in question continues unabated should be read as an eloquent statement suggesting that the smugglers of the minerals resort to external markets because they cannot readily dispose of the minerals locally even though they continue legally with their panning operations.
Meanwhile, back home various communications media are frequently replete with reports of panners plunging down decrepit shafts to their death or getting drowned in disused mines while violent acts between panners or by panners against civilians are regular occurrences.
Add to those unholy incidents are recent reports about panners disrupting farming activities, including Command Agriculture, in the Matopo area where farmers also reported losses of cattle that fell into deep pits left uncovered by the gold hunters.
The incidents complained of are obviously detrimental to a revamp of the economy adversely affected by illegal Western sanctions and aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Reports this week to the effect that Cabinet had ordered measures to be taken to restore sanity to gold panning among other things should not only be welcomed but must be fully supported by everyone so that small-scale miners of gold and other minerals play a complementary role in resuscitating our severely wounded and bleeding economy for the benefit of all.
It is in the opinion of this writer never too late to bring order and sanity to the minerals industry under discussion here. Our people can take a leaf from the freedom struggle as a point of departure in bringing order to the mining of gold by individual or small groups of people.
If today’s heroes and heroines had thrown their arms in the air in despair as racist rule in colonial Rhodesia reached its scintillating peak, with blacks being treated in the same way as pigs by white rulers, we would today not have Zimbabwe as the country of our pride.
What appears necessary here is a strong police presence to ensure that small miners of gold and other minerals do not flagrantly break the country’s laws. Of course a ready local market for the small or pedestrian miners is imperative here to obviate any further illegal exports of Zimbabwe’s minerals.
Online Reporter