Artisanal and Small scale miners (ASM) continue to dominate the gold delivery process to the country’s sole gold buyer and exporter, Fidelity Printers and Refineries (FPR) despite a record decline in gold delivered to the gold buying utility.
Rudairo Dickson Mapuranga
According to the 2019 first half Monetary statement released on Friday by the governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Dr John Mangudya, small scale miners have delivered more than 60 percent of the total gold delivered to the country’s sole gold buyer.
The statement acknowledged the fact that small scale gold producers are facing a lot of challenges, nevertheless, they have left an indelible mark in the mining sector despite the fact.
“It is, however, pleasing to note that small scale producers despite facing a plethora of challenges, continued to dominate the gold deliveries, accounting for more than 60 percent of total deliveries” reads the statement in part.
According to the statement, small scale miners dominated gold deliveries to Fidelity from January to May, however, in June gold delivery by the small scale sector was lower than that of large producers, producing only 687.4 against 814.5 produced by the country’s primary producers.
The government of Zimbabwe has set a target of 40 tonnes gold delivery to Fidelity, however, the target seems surrealistic with the country only recording 12.3 tonnes in the first half of the year compared to 17.3 in the same period last year.
According to the statement, there was a 40 percent decline in the mid-year’s deliveries compared to the same period last year which was caused by an unfavourable exchange rate, pricing and payment issues.
“Gold deliveries to Fidelity Printers and Refineries stood at 12.3 tonnes for the period January to June 2019. This was a 40.6 percent decline compared to 17.3 tonnes delivered during the comparable period in 2018. Exchange rate, pricing and payment issues which partly accounted for the decline in deliveries have however been largely resolved through the recent monetary policy measures” reads the report.
The recorded gold delivery to Fidelity last year was 33.2 tonnes in total since 1999 thus, targeting 40 tonnes this year seems to be a huge task.
The decline in gold deliveries during the first half of the year was caused by many reasons, among them: unstable power supply, abrupt changes in policies and fuel crisis which is strongly hitting the country right now.
