Govt orders mining equipment

increase productivity.
An engineer from the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development is already in China to assess the equipment expected in the country next month.
Mines Deputy Minister Gift Chimanikire confirmed the development in an interview.
“As Government, we want to restore the status of small-scale miners by providing them with mining equipment.
“The aim is to assist them to increase productivity. We placed orders to the tune of US$600 000 and the equipment is landing in August. It is a drop in the ocean but it is a move in the right direction,” he said.
Money to import the equipment was taken from the Mining Loan Fund that was revived in June last year. The fund had collapsed during the Zimbabwe dollar era but was revived after the adoption of the multi-currency system. When minerals are sold or exported, a certain percentage is retained and channelled to the Mining Loan Fund for such purposes.
Initially, the ministry had requested US$3 million from treasury for such purposes but did not get enough funding forcing it to resort to the Mining Loan Fund. Deputy Minister Chimanikire said Government resolved to provide small-scale miners with equipment as opposed to cash.
“You do not give miners cash but equipment to avoid abuse,” he said.
The Chinese suppliers are expected to supply spares for the equipment under the terms of an agreement reached with Government. Government, said Deputy Minister Chimanikire, resolved to import from China as South African companies were supplying the equipment at inflated prices.
“We finally made a breakthrough this year when Cabinet approved our contract with the Chinese firms,” he said. On why Government had targeted small-scale miners, Deputy Minister Chimanikire said: “Fifteen years ago, 60 percent of gold that was mined in the country came from small-scale miners.”
The development is good news to small-scale miners who were battling to acquire equipment and some of them had been reduced to mere panners.
For example, in the Harare mining region alone, which stretches to Mutoko and Mt Darwin, small-scale miners are in need of 49 compressors, 29 water pumps, 24 ball mills, 13 generator sets, and 12 stamp mills.
They have since approached the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development for assistance. Forty compressors, 20 stamp mills, 60 generator sets, 50 water pumps and 25 ball mills are needed by small-scale miners in the Gweru mining region covering such areas as Kwekwe. Small-scale miners in Bulawayo are pleading for 30 water pumps, 20 compressors, 20 generator sets, 15 stamp mills and 15 ball mills.
Deputy Minister Chimanikire called on treasury to plough back into the mining sector rather than to remain “a consumer of proceeds from the sector”.