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Sukoluhle Ndlovu Midlands Correspondent
President of the miners’ lobby group Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) Ms Henrienta Rushwaya said her organisation is working tirelessly to ensure that miners are mechanised to increase their gold output. Gold output target for small-scale miners this year is pegged at 40 tonnes, while their quarterly target is at 10 tonnes.
In an interview, Ms Rushwaya said small-scale miners were failing to meet their targets as they under capacitated.
“Small-scale miners are the biggest producers of gold compared to big miners because they contribute 60 percent of the mineral. Of late, artisanal miners have been failing to reach their target because they do not have proper mining equipment.
They have been relying on hammers, picks and shovels.
“As ZMF, we are committed to making sure that small scale miners are capacitated as they are a very crucial group in the mining sector.
In our quest to make mining easier and profitable for small miners, we have partnered with Metbank, Pablo’s investments and we have also partnered with Buscod mining company.
In 2015, we also roped in Yagden Engineering Company to supply and install ball mills in the country’s 10 provinces, as part of efforts to support small-scale miners,” she said.
Ms Rushwaya said the federation also applied for a fuel licence to cushion small-scale miners.
“Recently, we applied for a fuel license from the Ministry of Energy and Power Development through the Zimbabwe Energy
Regulatory Authority (ZERA).so that small- scale miners are able to carry out their mining activities without being delayed by fuel queues,” she said.
Recently, ZMF sealed $1 million facility with Pablos investments that will benefit more than 200 miners.
Online Reporter
Bongani Ndlovu