adminNgoni Dapira Business Correspondent
PENHALONGA artisanal miners, also known as makorokoza, are destroying large tracts of rehabilitated land at the DTZ-Ozgeo farm in Penhalonga in search of fine gold residue, Post Business has learnt. This was revealed last week Friday during a tour of the rehabilitated land at the Penhalonga alluvial gold mining concern by Africa University Natural Resources Management third-year students.
The Penhalonga mine is still not operational since November 2013 following a Government order to close-down all alluvial gold mining operations in the country that were mining along riverbeds.
DTZ-Ozgeo mining production director, Mr Piyo Chiradza said the company had so far rehabilitated 101-hectares of land with 22-hectares not yet rehabilitated at the Penhalonga farm.
Several tracts of rehabilitated land are however currently being dug-up again and gullied by local artisanal miners in search of remaining deposits of fine gold.
“As you can see we have rehabilitated the greater part of the land we once mined on at the farm but the problem at hand is local artisanal miners digging up the land again in search of deposits of fine gold, which is small residue of gold left after alluvial mining operations.
“We are currently unable to guarantee enough security over all the land, especially at the moment when we are not producing anything here (in Penhalonga) except for our diamond mining operations in Chimanimani,” said Mr Chiradza.
He said the company used to employ 457 workers, but currently it employs 57 at the Penhalonga mine.
Before closing operations the firm used to produce on average 500kgs of gold annually usually surpassing the production of its neighbour, Redwing Mine, owned by the gold mining group, Metallon Gold Corporation.
Rehabilitation of the land involves backfilling mined out areas in reverse sequence to ensure fertile soil is returned on top and then restoring the area to its former state with the rivers flowing in their original path and vegetation restored.
However, Mr Chiradza revealed that the rehabilitation process was very expensive which is why they have not been able to see through the remaining 22-hectares since being forced to close-down operations in 2013.
“We are nonetheless intending to finish the remaining 22-hectares, but really hope Government will reconsider our case and allow us to resume operations. We do not use harmful chemicals like cyanide or mercury so our alluvial mining does not pollute the Mutare River as feared,” he said.
During the tour Post Business caught up with some of the artisanal miners who had their own account citing unemployment as the push factor to their illegal operations.
One of the artisanal miners said that most of them were former DTZ-Ozgeo employees but now had no options for sources of income which is why they were resorting to illegal mining in the rehabilitated land.
“There is not much we can do. We just want to fend for our families. Most of us are former employees at the mine (DTZ-Ozgeo) and now we are left with few employment prospects since the mine closed down,” said the artisanal miner who refused to be named.
The artisanal miners said they usually work in syndicates of four or six and on a good day, they can score five to six grams of gold.
They are however forced to sell it to middlemen buyers at $23 per gram.
This is a rip-off given that currently the official rate is averaging $40 per gram.
The artisanal miners said they had not heard about the current Government syndication programme meant to entice artisanal miners into formalising.
“We do not know about this syndication programme. If it is truly there I will run there now, provided it is pro-poor and not too taxing for us. We do not have capital which is why we resort to sell our gold cheap to middlemen buyers for a quick buck,” he said.
Government is currently pushing artisanal miners to form syndicates and formalise their operations as part of efforts to increase gold deliveries and curb smuggling.
In July at a stakeholders meeting with small-scale gold miners, the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development acting provincial director, Mr Malcom Mazini said the syndication programme, which is part of Zim-Asset, was meant to formalise operations of artisanal miners and empower them.
He said the programme which was already running requires artisanal miners to group themselves in sixes and register with the Ministry to obtain a prospecting licence.
“The prospecting licence which costs $350 will entitle you (artisanal miners) to get concessions and claims where you can mine. It will also make you registered miners authorised to sell ore to Fidelity and in turn you will have no more brushes with the police,” said Mr Mazini at the workshop.
However criticism of poor information relay on the ground has been the major drawback of the programme. Early this year the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe mobilised $50 million to support gold miners.
The aim of the gold mobilisation programme is to increase gold production to around 30-tonnes per year by 2020 and revenue of around $1,5 million at the current price.
Online Reporter