aurora
Business Writer
Heavy rains pounding some parts of the country are reportedly causing flooding, a scenario that has forced some artisinal miners to halt operations.
This could seriously affect gold production given that prior did not experience such downpours.
Gold is the country’s largest foreign currency earner with artisinal miners being the largest producers.
Zimbabwe has been experiencing heavy rains across the country and a workers mining union has advised artisinal miners to temporarily halt operations to avoid potential disasters.
Artisanal miners normally use unregulated methods of mining, which normally lead to deadly accidents.
The Zimbabwe Diamond Allied Minerals Workers Union (ZDAMWU), said the heavy rains posed risks given that most of artisinal operations are unregulated and operators rarely observe safety regulations.
“ZDAMWU would like to urge small scale artisanal miners across the country to temporarily halt operations due to the incessant rains which have been pounding the country in recent days” the union said.
“The rains have made mining shafts and pillars in unregulated mining operations to be weak hence putting the lives of those miners at risk. We would like to urge those in the two sectors to at least halt their operations temporarily until the rains have subdued.”
The union said the current season was one of most dangerous for small scale and artisanal miners as” we have seen most lives being lost during this season.”
Most small scale miners have not invested in developing mines and putting in place safety measures, thereby putting lives at risk.
“As a union we take note of the same message coming from the Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) encouraging small scale and artisanal miners to put safety first.’
ZMF, which represents small scale and artisanal miners has said efforts were underway to raise awareness among miners against mining under-ground as various parts of the country continue to receive the heavy rains.
“As ZDAMWUwe have always been calling for safety. We need to move a gear up to combined campaigns, combined enforcement of the laws and policing of these small scale mines and artisanal miners .
“We have no doubt they (small scale miners) are the major contributors of our mining sector…and also a vital cog in economic revival, but a lot need to be done towards formalization of these big economic enablers. Worldwide , economies are sustained through formalising the small scale and artisanal mining. “
ZDAMWU said the Government should bring together all players including, trade unions to eradicate illegal mining and reduce accidents.
Bongani Ndlovu