Mines and Mining Development Minister Dr Polite Kambamura has acknowledged gaps in the training of government officers dealing with mining issues, while Members of Parliament also raised concerns over the monitoring and regulation of heap-leaching operations, Mining Zimbabwe can report.
By Rudairo Mapuranga
The Mines and Mining Development Minister Dr Polite Kambamura said his ministry was engaging various government departments and institutions, including the police, Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA), Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) and the Office of the President and Cabinet, to improve understanding of mining issues.
However, the minister acknowledged that some officers may be deployed without having participated in training programmes conducted by the ministry.
“It could be that those officers would have been picked randomly without having attended the trainings from the Mines Ministry,” Kambamura said.
He encouraged legislators who encounter officers lacking the necessary understanding of mining matters to bring the issue to the attention of his ministry so that corrective measures could be taken.
The discussion later turned to the growing use of heap-leaching technology in gold mining after Hon Spencer Tshuma raised concerns about the monitoring of such operations and the movement of gold from mining areas.
Heap leaching is a mineral-processing method in which crushed ore is placed on specially designed pads and treated with chemical solutions to recover valuable minerals, including gold. Its use requires proper technical management and environmental controls, particularly where chemicals are involved.
Kambamura said the government was strengthening its understanding and oversight of the technology, acknowledging that Zimbabwe needed to build greater local expertise in heap-leaching operations.
He said the technology had become increasingly associated with some foreign mining operators, including Chinese investors, while knowledge of the process remained limited among many local stakeholders.
“We have also sent people to learn about the technology of heap leaching,” Kambamura told Parliament.
He added that the government had established a committee involving heap-leach miners to improve engagement, information-sharing and oversight of the operations.
The parliamentary discussion comes as Zimbabwe’s mining industry continues to adopt a wider range of extraction and processing technologies, creating new challenges for regulators responsible for ensuring compliance with mining, environmental and mineral-accountability requirements.
The exchange also highlighted the importance of improving technical capacity across government institutions that interact with the mining sector.
As mining increasingly becomes more technologically complex, the effectiveness of regulation will depend not only on the existence of laws and institutions, but also on whether officials responsible for implementing them have the specialised knowledge needed to understand modern mining and mineral-processing methods.
For Parliament, the concerns raised on Wednesday pointed to a broader challenge facing Zimbabwe’s mining sector: ensuring that the rapid growth and changing nature of mining operations are matched by equally strong technical capacity and regulatory oversight.
