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Trynos, Nkomo
ONE of the major developments in the country in the last 39 years has been opening up gold mining to the once marginalised black majority.
The Government has made strides into ensuring that the masses benefit from the country’s resources directly. This has seen the livelihoods of citizens improve, more infrastructure built, service centres sprouting and the new miners’ contribution to the economy has been direct and felt.
This column seeks to educate and inform those already involved in the sector or those intending coming on board. Our focus therefore will be on the small-scale miner. Small-scale mining in Zimbabwe has predominantly been growing and expanding because of the current open state of the sector. The series of articles will focus on how thousands of small-scale miners started doing this business in Zimbabwe.
The process of venturing into the sector is looked at in terms of getting a Prospecting licence, prospecting for a place, pegging an area, obtaining a mining licence and starting work at the mine. A person who is a permanent resident of Zimbabwe and is above the age of 18 may pursue a prospecting licence at any of the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development offices.
A holder of a prospecting licence automatically acquires the rights to prospect for gold and peg a mining claim anywhere in Zimbabwe. When a prospecting licence holder has identified a mineral deposit that he or she is interested in, he/ she appoints an agent or an Approved Prospector to peg on his behalf. The agent is required to physically peg the area by marking the deposit with a Discovery Peg. He/ she should also post Prospecting Discovery and Registration Notices on the ground. Each prospecting licence can peg up to 10 claims at one hectare each.
An application for registration must be submitted to the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development offices. The application must have copies of the following attachments: a) Prospecting licence b) Prospecting notice c) Discovery notice (Base Minerals) d) Notification of intention to prospect to the landowner e) A map in triplicate to the scale of 1:25 000.
If the Provincial Mining Director is satisfied that all pegging procedures have been followed, he shall issue a certificate of registration upon payment of the gazetted fee. This allows the holder to start mining operations subject to meeting other obligations like Environment Impact Assessment (EIA).
Within three months from the date of registration the miner is required to erect a permanent beacon on the ground. All precious mineral claims are supposed to be continuously worked on in order to obtain renewal of title. Claims have a 12 months’ tenure after which they shall expire or be renewed. So anyone can be a gold miner as the sector has been opened up for you out there.
–The writer is an Insiza-based miner in Matabeleland South. He writes in his individual capacity.
Bongani Ndlovu