Online Reporter
As with most other economic sectors, the regulatory framework for mining has grown over the years, with bits added when needed.
So, as with other sectors, under a directive by President Mnangagwa following Cabinet agreement, there was a review of the entire regulatory framework.
The result was that overlaps in some regulations and associated fees were found, and these are to be eliminated by placing all licences and permits under a single regulatory authority.
Such simplification and streamlining make sense.
Miners need to know exactly where they stand and what their duties, obligations and responsibilities are.
Having everything under one roof also makes it easier to see where there could be any leftover duplication, and even to see if a particular licence is required in the first place in the modern mining world.
So far as fees and licences are concerned, the basic principle must be simple cost recovery, with miners paying for the work needed to record and maintain their claims and ensure their adherence to sensible regulations, which includes inspection of their mines.
The recent trawling through the whole system found that around 80 percent of fees were rational and reasonable; the other 20 percent were on the high side and are to be reduced, and in a couple of cases eliminated.
New fees for desired work, such as beneficiation, have been set, but in line with registration and enforcement costs. Thus, a lithium processing plant costing hundreds of millions of dollars has a US$100 licence fee, about 0,00025 percent in a typical case, if one wants a precise figure.
But that pays for the paperwork, someone checking that the plant is in the right place and not, for example, on top of a wetland, and that it is actually being built.
The review also identified an area of unfairness. Artisanal miners are often charged similar fees to those paid by large mining companies, meaning the licence fees might be a significant percentage of revenue, rather than a trivial sum covered by a few minutes or even seconds of production.
There is also the obvious factor that any given inspection is likely to cover a fairly large block of artisanal miners in a single day, rather than just one or two mines, so even maintaining cost recovery as a policy allows a drastic reduction in the fees charged.
The idea is to bring artisanal miners into the formal system, rather than exclude them as a nuisance, as was the case in colonial days.
Once in the system, they can then be regulated, and enforcement of environmental, labour, safety and other laws made not just easier, but possible.
The need for mining regulation over and above the general laws governing all development arises from the nature of mining rights and the actual, and often dangerous, processes of mining. All minerals in Zimbabwe are owned by the State, not by the landowner or landholder of the surface.
This arose from the days of the British South Africa Company, which through fraud and conquest acquired legal recognition of the rights, then sold them — remarkably cheaply — in the midst of the Great Depression in the early 1930s to the settler Government, with the independent Zimbabwean State inheriting these rights at independence.
For a start, regulation is required to ensure that those investing in prospecting and mining have undisputed rights to do so for specific minerals in laid‑down areas, so that disputes over who is allowed to mine where are avoided.
These regulations protect miners, although there are time limits imposed and now enforced to ensure that work does start within a stated period and that a right is not created and held for speculation.
The same legal position allows the charging of royalties and now makes beneficiation an important condition for a mining licence.
Secondly, there are regulations governing the rights of farmers against miners, and where necessary, farmers are to be bought out fairly or compensated, or resettled on suitable land nearby at no cost to themselves, with their livestock fenced off from the mine.
Thirdly, miners are not allowed to dig just anywhere. Besides the obvious need to avoid built‑up areas and resolve conflict with farmers, there is also the need to protect the environment and cause minimal damage, with detailed regulations on restoring land after it has been mined.
This includes the general need to avoid dumping toxic waste, which everyone has to obey. The bans on alluvial and river mining fall into this category.
Finally, mining can be very dangerous, so there are safety rules that all have to follow.
This is a major reason for bringing small‑scale miners into the system, since almost all injuries and deaths occur in this sub‑sector, where safety rules are ignored or watered down, while major mining companies do follow the rules and are able to mobilise emergency teams when unforeseen incidents occur.
Enforcement of mining law is being improved through the adoption of modern technologies, which avoid many disputes over rights and ensure that an increasing percentage of required duties can be monitored more easily.
This allows fees to be controlled, despite the growing complexities of modern business.
