Chronicle Editor
Leonard Ncube/Rosalla Mzacana, Victoria Falls Reporters
SMALL scale gold miners have called upon Government to liberalise the sector by opening the gold buying market to more players.
At the moment the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe subsidiary, Fidelity Printers and Refiners is the sole gold buyer in the country and small scale miners contribute 60 percent of the gold deliveries.
The small scale sector contributed 22 tonnes of gold last year despite facing operational challenges. Gold mining is also one of the key export earners with Government targeting output of 100 tonnes by the year 2023.
Zimbabwe Miners Federation president, Ms Henrietta Rushwaya, made the appeal to liberalise gold buying when she addressed delegates at the Zimbabwe Annual Mining Conference here last week.
She said the sector, which has about 30 000 registered and more than over 1,5 million unregistered players, faces numerous challenges some of which can be addressed by reviewing Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR)’s monopoly in the buying of gold.
“Small scale miners are not happy with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe policies around the industry hence less delivery to Fidelity Printers. We want the monopoly of Fidelity Printers to be reviewed and gold trading liberalised,” said Ms Rushwaya amid applause from delegates.
She said small scale miners feel short changed by Fidelity Printers hence they were calling for the liberalisation of the buying of gold.
Ms Rushwaya said because of Fidelity Printers’ monopoly, there has been a rise in middlemen who end up swindling miners.
She said some of these middle men were smuggling the gold outside the country thereby prejudicing Government of revenue.
Ms Rushwaya also bemoaned prevalence of fatalities at mining concessions countrywide and said the gold rush and deaths could be avoided by regulating the sector.
“The recent gold rush countrywide has resulted in deaths hence we need to manage influx into mines,” she noted.
The ZMF boss said the country can learn from Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia that have adopted a streamlining exercise where small scale players are charged separately from large scale miners in terms of licence fees.
She also urged miners to respect the country’s mining laws and avoid invading other people’s properties. Ms Rushwaya said small scale miners should interact with large scale miners and have one goal of producing for the country.
She also called for empowerment of marginalised groups such as youths, women and disabled, adding that corporate social responsibility programmes should be encouraged.
Chairperson of the gold producers committee Mr Thomas Gono said resuscitating gold mines, increasing capacity, developing new mines and formalising small scale mining would help reduce fatalities. He said the sector requires about $5 billion for the next five years to grow and rise above prevailing challenges such as foreign currency shortages, delays in funding and electricity shortages.
Mr Gono said 2018 was a good year in the gold sector as the country surpassed the 1999 record. There were also calls for reduction of royalties to attract foreign direct investment as well as reviewing forex retention thresholds. Mines and Mining Development Minister Winston Chitando said some of the challenges such as power outages and currency exchange rates were short term and urged miners to meet their obligations as well.
There was consensus that a Gold Development Policy is needed as a matter of urgency to address all challenges facing the sector. President Mnangagwa officially opened the conference on Friday and it was held under the theme; “Realising Vision 2030 Through Resource Led Growth”.—@ncubeleon.
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