Year-end target for Kamativi exploration

Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
A TECHNICAL team consisting of personnel from the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) and a Chinese investor, Beijing Pingchang, has been set up to start work to resuscitate Kamativi Tin Mine, a Cabinet Minister has said.

The country’s only tin mine ceased operations in 1994 after the price of tin declined drastically on the international market.

Last year, the government announced that ZMDC and Beijing Pingchang had entered into a $102 million joint venture deal to resuscitate the Matabeleland North mine.

In line with the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act, ZMDC owns 51 percent shares while 49 percent is held by Beijing Pingchang.Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa told Business Chronicle that exploration work would begin before the end of the year.

“Very soon work will begin in terms of preparing quarters to accommodate the technical team to establish the nature and extent of the resources at Kamativi Mine,” he said.

“There’re tin, tantalite and tungsten deposits there. So, after the establishment of staff quarters, which is something to happen very soon, we’ll see work to establish the nature of resources and their quantity beginning before the end of the year,” he said.

The re-opening of the mine, according to the mine’s former workers is long overdue.They, through their association, Kamativi Early Settlers Development Organisation (Kesedo), have also called on the government to allow them to form small-scale mining syndicates that will operate as a tributary supplying tin to the mine.

This, Kesodo sees it as a form of economic empowerment to the Kamativi community. It is believed that there are close to 40 million tonnes of open cast tin reserves considered among the best in the world. Kamativi Tin Mine was opened in 1936.