daniel chigunwe
Sikhulekelani Moyo
THE Government is rolling out a package of policy, fiscal and technical reforms to attract exploration finance and expand Zimbabwe’s pipeline of new mines, Mines and Mining Development Minister Dr Polite Kambamura has said.
Speaking at the Mine Entra Exploration Symposium, Dr Kambamura said Zimbabwe already has the geology and skills, but now needs capital to turn resources into discoveries and jobs.
“We have the geology, we have the human capital, what we now need is exploration finance,” Minister Kambamura said.
“Streaming finance, equity, shares, loans need to flow to Zimbabwe. That’s why we are gathered here.”
The minister acknowledged that decades of fragmented records have made it harder for investors, noting that geological reports, maps and drill logs produced around the period of Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain were taken out of the country, with some now in private archives.
“We should neither traumatise ourselves over that loss nor remain imprisoned by it. Let us be transformed by the renewal of our minds,” he said.
“This is the time to rebuild Zimbabwe’s geological memory and to build it even better with the aid of new technologies.”
To do that, Dr Kambamura said the Government is modernising the Zimbabwe Geological Survey through systematic data recovery, digitisation, core libraries and databases. It is also moving to a computerised mining cadastral system to make titles clear, secure, searchable and transferable.
“For roughly three decades, the pace and breadth of systematic exploration have been below what geological potential demands,” he said.
“Technology now allows us to change that equation.”
He cited high-resolution airborne magnetics, radiometrics, gravity and EM surveys, satellite imagery, drones, 3D modelling and AI as tools that will shorten the path from raw terrain to drill-ready targets.
“AI will not replace geologists. It will help the geologists integrate decades of maps, assays, structures and remote sensing data at a speed no human team could actually achieve unaided,” he said.
Under the current tax framework, Dr Kambamura said prospecting expenditure, including surveys, can be deducted under the Income Tax Act. Qualifying exploration and development costs can also be carried forward against future mining income.
“These are incentives that the Government came up with to attract junior mining companies into the country,” he said.
Online Reporter