The Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) has called on the government to expedite the formalisation and regularisation of the small-scale miners’ operations to curb smuggling and increase revenue to the fiscus.
Benard Rinomhota
In an interview, ZMF Chief Executive Officer Mr. Wellington Takavarasha said the formalisation of the small-scale mining industry has been talked about for a long time now and thus it was imperative to move with speed to complete the exercise.
“This needs to be expedited and stakeholders like Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR) have actually written to the government to say they are ready to assist in the formalisation process.
“And if we remain not regularised, the government continues to lose lots of money to illicit trade of gold,” he said.
The artisanal and small-scale mining industry has more than 500 000 members across the country.
“You are quite aware that people are being arrested for smuggling gold because we have quite a huge chunk of people that are not registered,” said Mr. Takavarasha.
In the recent past, there have been reports that the country has been losing the yellow metal through smuggling to neighbouring countries such as South Africa where gold offers favourable price.
Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube recently said the government was also aware that the country’s gold was being smuggled to Dubai through South Africa.
In this context, he said the government was putting in place measures to curb gold leakages.
Such initiatives include the setting up of 20 gold milling centers across the country to facilitate the processing as well as the recent increase in the buying price of the yellow metal by FPR.
This article first appeared in the August 2020 issue of the Mining Zimbabwe Magazine