Oliver Kazunga
Senior Reporter
GOVERNMENT has brought 19 suspected mineral export violation cases to court as part of a major crackdown on leakages within Zimbabwe’s mining value chain.
According to the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ), 13 of these 19 cases involve lithium and chrome, two key targets for illegal syndicates.
Mines and Mining Development Minister Dr Polite Kambambura said the Second Republic was working directly with the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra), police and State agencies to plug the gaps and enforce strict accountability across the mining sector.
“As the Government, we are going to continue to tighten control and to watch every export with an eagle eye to see that people comply to lay out procedures. We are monitoring the payment of all taxes and royalties’’
‘’We have complied with declaring all mineral elements in the export consignment. So, there are a lot of measures that we are going to be implementing before the end of the year. There is more strictness now at the borders to ensure that all registered trucks that ferry minerals for export are registered with the Ministry of Mining and Development, MMCZs, registered also with Zimra and the exporters database,’’ he added
Trucks that are not registered with the exporting authorities such as MMCZ, will not be allowed to export minerals or to carry minerals to the borders.
“We shall be conducting training for border officials, issue of weighbridges at border posts and mineral scanners,’’ Minister Kambamura said.
MMCZ accounting officer Mr Admire Musonza said the corporation was the first line of defence against mineral leakages, but relied on a coordinated approach with other State agencies.
“MMCZ is the first principal line of defence against mineral leakages, but we don’t do this alone. It is really a collaborative effort,” he said.
He said the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development was responsible for licencing operators, while the police’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID) and ZIMRA were involved in enforcement and border controls.
“These are the cases that have gone through the legal channels and are being processed in the courts,” Mr Musonza said.
The majority of the cases involve lithium and chrome, commodities that have become increasingly important to Zimbabwe’s mineral exports.
Mr Musonza said MMCZ had also audited chrome wash plants operating along the Great Dyke and found 33 registered plants, 36 unregistered plants and 10 still under construction.
The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development recently issued a notice requiring chrome wash plants on the Great Dyke to be registered.
Mr Musonza said formalising the unregistered plants would bring their production into the regulated value chain and strengthen monitoring of mineral output.
“All those 36 that are unregistered, they need to be formalised so that their production can also come into the formal channel,” he said.
To further prevent the loss of value through under-declaration or failure to account for associated minerals, MMCZ has introduced full assay of minerals presented for export.
“Anything of economic value will then be invoiced or charged so that there is no value loss,” Mr Musonza said.
In the past, it has been observed that multi-mineral ores can contain combinations of lithium, tantalum, tin, nickel, platinum group metals, chrome or rare earth elements.
If exported as raw ore and declared as a single mineral, the country risked losing revenue from the undeclared or unprocessed associated minerals embedded in the same consignment.
And through beneficiation, ores are processed locally to separate and concentrate individual minerals using crushing, milling, flotation and chemical separation processes.
This ensures each mineral component is quantified, taxed and sold at higher value, rather than being exported in bulk at lower prices.
Mr Musonza said that in the fourth quarter this year, MMCZ would introduce drone technology to strengthen surveillance of mining and mineral-processing operations.
He said the corporation was working to integrate its systems with those of ZIMRA, the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to strengthen information sharing and detect irregularities.
The integration, he said, would also help combat the manipulation of export documentation.
“This will also eliminate to an extent the practice of document manipulation,” he said.
The latest measures come as authorities step up efforts to ensure minerals produced in Zimbabwe are properly accounted for and enter the formal marketing and export channels.
Meanwhile, the Government has given all mining title holders with outstanding obligations up to December 31 this year.
The move comes as the Government intensifies a crackdown on illegal alluvial chrome mining.
In July, the Government had given all mining title holders and operators a directive to regularise their outstanding statutory obligations by August 30.
The latest deadline affects mining rights holders regardless of scale, with the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development ordering them to settle outstanding statutory obligations, obtain approved payment plans where applicable, secure surveyed coordinates and complete all outstanding regularisation requirements.
Zimbabwe’s mining sector contributes an estimated 14 percent to 27 percent of the Gross Domestic Product and generates about 75 percent of the country’s export earnings.
Data released this week by MMCZ general manager Dr Nomusa Moyo whose organisation is the marketer of all minerals in the country except gold and silver, at a media workshop in Masvingo on Wednesday, revealed that export earnings more than doubled to US$4,735 billion in the first nine months of the year, driven by lithium and stronger commodity prices.
The latest development comes hard on the heels of a decision made by President Mnangagwa early this year to ban raw mineral ore exports which earned the country less.
The mineral export earnings figure for the period under review represents a 101,8 percent increase from US$2,347 billion recorded during the corresponding period last year, translating to an additional US$2,388 billion.
In the first nine months of the year, mineral export volumes also increased by 23,4 percent, rising from 3,840 million tonnes to 4,738 million tonnes.
And September alone generated US$685,03 million in mineral export sales, representing a 116,6 percent increase from the same month last year. Monthly export volumes rose 70,8 percent to about 844,063 tonnes.
Lithium has emerged as the country’s leading mineral revenue earner, overtaking platinum group metals (PGMs).
“Lithium, therefore, led by approximately US$430 million. We attribute lithium’s emergence as the leading revenue earner to the beneficiation work being driven by Government, alongside producers’ investment and operational efforts,” said Dr Moyo.
