admin
Oliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter
MINES and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa yesterday challenged the local mining industry to pool resources together and set up a power generation plant to enhance reliability of power supply in their operations. Inadequate power supplies remain a major challenge for mining, with players also citing high costs of electricity.
Addressing delegates at the Mine Entra conference in Bulawayo yesterday the minister said the mining sector was critical in national economic development hence it was imperative to come up with programmes that support the industry.
“Every day mining companies suffer from power outages, shortages, the cost of power and the reliability of power. But have we sat down as the industry . . .if we can together think through these things we’ll actually be able to have power dedicated to the mining sector and any excess can then go to the rest of the economy,” he said.
Minister Chidhakwa said the mining industry should move away from a monopolistic attitude created over years that power should only come from Zesa.
“The government policy is no longer like that (monopoly over power generation). If yesterday power was a preserve of Zesa, today its’ not, if yesterday the coal that generates the power was a preserve of Hwange Colliery Company Limited, today it’s clearly not,” he said.
The minister said the fact that the government had liberalised the development of infrastructure from State enterprises to the private sector, calls for mining companies to come together and develop a power plant.
“I fail to understand why it’s not possible for instance, for our three platinum companies, our five large scale gold miners, our chrome companies sitting down and saying we want to develop a power station for ourselves, we want to create power reliability for our activities and … can we set up a 150 megawatts power station. You sit today as companies on your balance sheet with a reserve of minerals and leverage on that to develop a power station, get a financing house to underwrite the development of a power station,” he said.
Minister Chidhakwa said the mining industry spends most of its time looking at the broader macroeconomic environment to see if thery were consistent with business support.
He said mining houses should, instead, look at the micro economic aspects that can lead to national infrastructure being developed.
For instance, he said, mines are waiting for the National Railways of Zimbabwe to develop the railways yet it was common knowledge that the NRZ did not have the resources.
“There’re other companies that move large volumes of chrome and such companies must be interested in an efficient railway system; so we must move away from the attitude created over years that these are a preserve of government companies, they’re not. The government has invited the private sector to participate in the development of infrastructure.”
He said the mining sector was useless if it was not supported by strong transport, power and telecommunications networks.
He said Zimbabwe was endowed with a rich mineral resources base thus the government was working on promoting extensive mineral exploration.
Last week, he said, Cabinet approved the need for the government to roll out serious exploration programme.
“The companies should carry out exploration in your own in-house activities and l note some aren’t undertaking mineral exploration,” said Minister Chidhakwa.
He said the transformation of the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe into a Mining and Exploration and Promotion Company was at an advanced stage.
Minister Chidhakwa reiterated that the government will not a take a step back in the consolidation of the country’s diamond industry.
“We’re determined to consolidate, we’ve given the companies in the diamond industry what we believe is a fair commercial model for consolidation and participation in the diamond sector. But some of the reasons that they’ve given are cultural reasons that I’m from the Arab world so l can’t work with an Asian . . .,” he said.
According to the World Bank, the country’s mining sector has the ability to generate over $11 billion in revenue, $10 billion in export receipts and contribute $1,7 billion to the fiscus by 2018 driven by a favourable investment environment and investment in infrastructure.
Online Reporter