Hoax, what hoax?

Artisanal miners deserve firm human dignity and respect

Dexter Nduna, Mp Right of Reply
The trapping of the artisanal miners cannot be a hoax as the learned Professor cannot be a mouthpiece for the said missing miners. The allegation that the Local MP was and is creating a story of missing artisanal miners is recklessly prejudicial and misplaced and amounts to defamation of the person of

the sitting MP and derogatory to dignity and sanctity of human life by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development Professor Francis Gudyanga as there is a credible report that was made to local police by one of the surviving artisanal miners.

What the learned Professor (Francis Gudyanga) is not saying is whether the procedure of closing or backfilling mine shafts was followed irrespective of who owns them, ACR or Breckridge, or the artisanal miners and whether this none procedure and unlawful operation could be the one that led to suspected loss of life at Chegutu Pickstone Peerless Mine, owned by ACR and Breckridge Resources.

If ACR & Breckridge and the Secretary of Miners had obtained an eviction order as is required at law, this could have been averted as adequate grace period could have been given to artisanal miners to wind up operations legally, thus averting this catastrophe.

All districts have Civil Protection Units and the District Administrator of Chegutu is the Chairman of the District CPU of this area.

So the notion that the DA blocked the rescue team is coy in fact and misplaced in truth.

The DA merely directed ACR & Breckridge to stop acting as though it was business as usual by continually conducting mining operations for personal gain whilst they provided no equipment for the rescue for the operation towards the excavation and recovery efforts of the artisanal miners as per report.

It should be noted that it could have been in the Permanent Secretary’s best interests to first talk to the DA before making reckless statements that also smack of defamation.

The involvement of the Permanent Secretary of Mines and his team does not change the protocol and reporting structures of the CPU.

It should be noted that the place where the Secretary derived his instructions and statements from, i.e. ACR & Breckridge, while claiming that rescue operations were being blocked, would not be keen to excavate evidence for their own prosecution hence will do everything to defend the status quo.

The issue of backfilling the more than 90 artisanal mine shafts at less than 20 minutes notice period will die a natural death and no one will ever get the courage to excavate their misgivings.

ACR & Breckridge Resources are listed on the London Stock Exchange and the value of their shares hedges on the gold resources at Pickstone and Gadzema Giant Mines which claims they have continued to hold onto for the last 20 years without production for speculative purposes.

This is where Black Zimbabwean Artisanal Miners came in and filled the void and delivered Gold to Fidelity counters at a rate of 100kg per month.

This is well documented and unlike what the Mines Secretary deliberately ignores and chooses to be ignorant about royalties as gold tax is accruing to Government at a rate of 5 percent and 3 percent for large mines and artisanal Miners respectively.

The artisanal miners have delivered more gold and value to the Government of Zimbabwe than ACR & Breckridge.

A fact derived from numbers which the learned Professor could be knowing better had he not chosen to ignore.

Zanu-PF Party, of which I am Treasurer in the Mashonaland West Province received $3 500 into the Zanu-PF Party’s Provincial Bank Account from the Artisanal Miners.

This is the apex the Empowerment drive sought and brought about by the Zanu-PF Government where our very own Black young Zimbabweans are beginning to support their Party and deed and talk while those that the Permanent Secretary prefers to stand alongside with do not support the Party, not that we mind.

The demeanour and utterances of the Secretary are both uninformed and reckless and have led to such misguided reports.

By the way the $3 500 from the Artisanal Miners is part of the sacrifices by Zanu-PF Membership that was channelled towards the successful hosting of the 15th Annual National People’s Conference.

It’s not that the Mines Secretary would know about Party issues but since he attended the Conference as a back-bencher, he should have sought to get his facts right before going to town about donors to the Party, whose Government currently employs him, that included Artisanal Miners but excluded his preferred friends, the erstwhile colonisers ACR & Breckridge Resources whom he does not say how much they have contributed towards the hosting of the Conference.

The deposit slips in the party Accounts speak to this matter and again the good Professor is trading defamation ground on this matter.

The interest that I have for my Constituency as a mining hub goes as far as motions I moved in Parliament on Exploration; Harmonisation of the Mines and Minerals Act and Decriminalisation of Artisanal Mining.

These move in sync with Zim-Asset and H.E. President Mugabe’s 10-point Plan and the Zanu-PF Manifesto launched in 2013 for the creation of 2,5 million jobs and the Minister of Finance’s Statement that says Gold deliveries were being received from no less than half million Artisanal and small-scale Miners who include but not limited to those at Pickstone and Gadzema Mines in Chegutu.

The Mines Secretary should note that the motion had the following Prayers and exert his energy towards making them real.

The Exploration Motion called for:

a) The Executive to expeditiously allocate resources towards mineral exploration

b) Establish a database containing mineral geological information and

c) Initiate the enactment of a Minerals Exploration Act resulting in Resource evaluation; resource definition and ultimately resource extraction.

Cognisant of the prevailing economic challenges that the country is facing due, in part, to the debilitating economic sanctions and the lack of balance of payment support;

Aware of the crippling de-industrialisation and the prevailing low capacity utilisation in the industrial sector which has severely dwindled Government revenue from taxes;

Acknowledging the informalisation of the economy which has led to an astronomical growth of the informal sector;

Convinced that the pursuit of an upward trajectory of economic revival as envisaged in the Zim-Asset economic blueprint will include, in part, the formulation of strategies to tap into the informal sector;

Recognising that artisanal mining, which involves over 500 000 people, is a significant generator of both rural and urban livelihoods which has the potential to alleviate poverty and be a tool for sustainable development thus contributing to Zim-Asset;

Aware that despite its obvious benefits, the formalisation of artisanal mining is hindered by the absence of an enabling legislative framework, prohibitive levies charged by the Ministry of Mines, rural district councils, the Environmental Management Agency as well as inordinate delays in the issuance of licences and inspections by surveyors;

Further aware that the formalisation of the sector will enable artisanal miners to contribute towards the fiscus and will reduce incidences of diversion and smuggling of our precious mineral resources to neighbouring countries;

Now hereby calls upon the Executive:

1. To adapt to the ‘new normal’ and review the Mines and Minerals Act to include artisanal and small scale mining;

2. To de-criminalise artisanal mining by creating objective, transparent and non-discriminatory regulatory mechanisms which offer easy access to mining titles and legal production channels;

3. To create an enabling legislative framework which integrates the artisanal mining sector into the local community and encourages the investment of profits in other forms of economic activity and services

4. To repeal the Mines and Minerals Act section 365-368 that criminalises and imposes stiff jail terms on people prospecting without licence. And furthermore to repeal the gold trade act section 3 that criminalises possession of gold and also imposes stiff penalties for Possession.

Regarding the rehabilitation of a road at Pickstone, the Secretary and the Mine authority are clutching onto straws trying to involve me in the road deals for defending the Constituency from the likes of ACR & Breckridge who are mining and blasting inside the Kadoma-Mamina Road Servitude and should instead stop operations immediately to avert disaster as the road is being trafficked daily by innocent unsuspecting road users and members of the community.

The issue of my company being involved in the so-called $400 000 road deal also smacks of defamation.

The Mines secretary should allow the excavation of the more than 90 shafts so that all surviving artisanal miners and Zimbabweans can quench anxiety.

The same effort used in backfilling the shafts unlawfully by ACR & Breckridge should be used to excavate the same. It is not good to take the law into their own hands.

The Government should come in without delay to conduct the excavation as requesting ACR & Breckridge is as good as asking the criminal to excavate evidence of his misdeeds.

ACR / Breckridge resources with the help of the good professor took the law in their own hands and evicted young black Zimbabweans who are earnestly and honestly earning a livelihood for themselves and their defendants, without carrying out due diligence on the nature of the contract or agreement subsisting for the artisanal miners to be there, the London Stock Exchange listed company went ahead and behaved in the most inhuman way ever imagined.

Common cause and morality would have deterred the good Professor in carrying out a process of blatant application of neo-colonial and classroom regulatory approach.

The more than 6 000 artisanal miners in Chegutu deserve firm human dignity and respect as the few white shareholders of ACR/ Breckridge.

There is power in numbers, especially the informal sector led by the artisanal miners and that’s the exact reason it has caught the eye of Parliament.

The nation can’t be hoodwinked by moribund archaic and historic laws and the Mines Secretary should be the first to know that.

The issues for Chegutu should be handled with a view that the entire population earn their lively hood on the Pickstone and giant mine in Gadzema and sell their gold to Fidelity which also earns taxes for the Government of Zimbabwe which claims are held speculatively by ACR/ Breckridge resources for the past 15-20 years, these resource reserves that are being banked and securitised on the London stock exchange.