The Minister of Finance and economic development has allocated $293.2 towards exploration to promote the Mining sector, the diamond tax was also slashed by 5 per cent with the aim of enabling diamond firms to finance exploration.

Rudairo Dickson Mapuranga

It is a fact that Zimbabwe is hamstrung by lack of exploration, in order to improve the sector the Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube through 2020 budget state has channelled $293 million towards exploration which is critical for expansion of the sector.

The money will help the Ministry to acquire relevant equipment in terms of planning and promotion of exploration, data capturing and automation.

“Furthermore, in 2020, a will be fine-tuned and improve while the Ministry of Mines and Mineral Development will be resourced to enhance exploration which is critical for expansion in the sector. This will allow the Ministry to acquire relevant equipment such as computers among others.”

“Accordingly, I am, allocating ZWL 293.2 million to the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development for its capacitation in terms of planning, promotion of exploration, data capturing, and automation, among others” reads the 2020 budget in part.

According to the budget statement, the cost of prospecting for diamonds has increased and therefore in order to promote investment and exploration in the diamond sector, the government has seen it fit to decrease diamond taxes.

“Diamond mines are exploiting conglomerate deposits, hence the cost of  extraction has significantly increased.”

‘In order to promote investment in exploration and extraction, I propose to review the royalty on diamond from 15 per cent to 10 per cent of gross revenue with effective from 1 January 2020″ reads the report.