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Court Reporter
A SOLDIER and four men arrested for mining gold illegally have invoked President Mugabe’s promise to decriminalise their activities in court.
The men claimed they were unaware that gold panning was illegal, admitting they had misunderstood Zanu-PF’s election promise to review the mining legislation to mean their activities were now legal.
Trooper Michael Nyika (26), Collen Songo (26), Jonna Makaza (23), Lovemore Chinyama (30) and Charles Masoswa (29) – all of Mazareta Farm in Kadoma – all pleaded guilty to illegally prospecting for gold before Bulawayo magistrate Mr Gladmore Mushove yesterday.
They will be sentenced today.
The five men — arrested at a mine in Shangani along the Bulawayo-Gweru highway — told magistrate Mr Mushove they were trying to “empower” themselves.
And in a desperate bid to beat the charge, the men told the magistrate that they had misread the campaign promise, first made by the President and later taken up by then Mines Minister Cde Obert Mpofu, to stop the crackdown on gold panners.
Nyika told the magistrate: “We thought that we were in the right because of what we heard during the election campaign and only realised that it was still a crime when police arrested us.
“We were actually shocked because we had been told that we could look for money in any way and no-one would trouble us.”
Mr Jeremiah Mutsindikwa, prosecuting, told how Nyika, Songo, Makaza, Chinyama and Masoswa were rounded up by CID detectives on 19 September at a small mine owned by Ronnie Brown Masiso in Shangani. Detectives found the men draining water from a mine shaft using a generator.
President Mugabe has asked Mines officials to review legislation on gold panners to decriminalise their activities, and Cde Mpofu had responded by drawing up plans to release illegal miners already in jail.
New Mines Minister Cde Walter Chidhakwa will increasingly come under pressure to act on President Mugabe’s election vow.
Online Reporter