adminindigenisation of our resources is going to work.”
This is the message that Zanu-PF Shamva South National Assembly seat candidate Cde Joseph Mapiki has been spreading in the constituency.
Addressing a 5 000-strong rally at Chakonda Growth Point in Shamva on Wednesday, Cde Mapiki said the recent amendments to the Mines and Minerals Act that gives right of ownership of minerals to land owners on which they are discovered would work in favour of his alluvial gold-rich constituency.
“Previously, land owners used to be prejudiced and dispossessed of proceeds from the precious mineral,” he said. “Prospectors would simply come and claim ownership of mining rights on other people’s land. Villagers in this constituency lost out through this. Now it’s time to recover lost ground.
Cde Mapiki said several youths and women had already started benefiting from the amendments of the Act as they now owned gold claims where mining was taking place.
“You bear testimony of the number of people who have benefited under the own-your-gold-mine scheme that we have started here,” he said.
“We have done away with haphazard chikorokoza. Previously unemployed youths now own gold mines following discoveries of alluvial gold deposits on their land.”
Cde Mapiki, whose constituency has registered 25 000-plus voters, said most people resident there were beneficiaries of the land reform.
He said he had already engaged farmers at irrigation schemes and on small holder plots on value addition projects to their agricultural produce.
“Several households have engaged in value addition to their agricultural produce,” he said.
“We have several peanut butter projects, sweet potato-flour programmes in the various irrigation schemes in Shamva South.”
Cde Mapiki easily shrugged competition from 15 other aspiring Zanu-PF candidates during the primary elections through his practical projects that have improved livelihoods of numerous households and endeared him to the electorate.
Online Reporter