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ZIMBABWE and Zambia will co-host the first Extra-ordinary Session of the African Union Conference of Ministers responsible for mineral resources development at Victoria Falls and Livingstone respectively starting tomorrow (Saturday). The conference will run up to Wednesday and President Mugabe is expected to open it at a day to be announced.
The conference comes barely a month after Zimbabwe successfully hosted the second biannual Zimbabwe Diamond Conference at the Harare International Conference Centre.
Officially opening the conference, President Mugabe bemoaned factors which continue to cripple intensive mining operations such as power shortages and the technology gap despite the country boasting large mineral reserves.
“Despite this huge mineral endowment, exploration of the country’s minerals in general, upstream, side-stream and downstream, has been limited by factors that include power shortages, technology gap and uneven marketing conditions.
“Realising the full benefits from the country’s mineral endowment will be achieved through investment in appropriate modern technologies, undertaking new exploration projects to discover new mines, exploration on existing mines to extend life of mines, ramping up production to full capacity by operating mines and existing producers expanding current design capacities,” he said.
He said Government through the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, was working on implementing a computerised mining cadastre that will effectively manage the mining title system to ensure transparency and efficiency in the sector.
“The cadastre system will be an important tool to Government in the promotion of mining development and mineral accounting. It will also improve the ministry’s efficiency and reliability in the processing of applications for mining title and this will guarantee short lead times to tasks and ensure that investors can quickly get down to serious business without delay,” said President Mugabe.
The two- day conference is the second biggest diamond indaba in Africa outside the Kimberly Process meetings and it saw world diamond industry senior delegates, several African mines ministers and international diamond buyers, sellers and jewellers converging to exchange knowledge, networking and mapping the way forward for the growth of the country’s diamond industry and central to the discussions was for the country to embark on robust strategies for value addition to its primary resources and beneficiation for its locals.
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