Lack of trust is causing low gold deliveries to FPR
Economic experts have laid out that small scale and artisanal miners will not deliver their gold production to Fidelity Printers and Refineries due to lack of trust.
Rudairo Dickson Mapuranga
Speaking to Mining Zimbabwe an economic expert who refused to be quoted said that despite Fidelity paying miners money that is worth their production, most small scale and artisanal miners will not deliver their gold to the state gold buying utility because they don’t trust the current government.
According to her, both large scale and small scale miners are not delivering their full production of gold to Fidelity because they feel that the government might shift goal posts and resort to paying very little, unproportioned to their gold demand from miners using its delivery statistics.
“It all goes to trust, miners do not trust the current government, if they start delivering to Fidelity now, their full gold production will backfire in the near future”
“The government might pay less but demanding more… they will have the statistics” she said.
Commenting on the issue, a renowned geologist and mining expert Kennedy Mtetwa said that the lack of trust is brewed by the ministry of finance which changes policies willy nilly.
“Do you not see that the issue of trust emanates from the ministry of finance?” said Mtetwa.
When they were asked by Mining Zimbabwe to comment on the issue, Fidelity Printers could neither confirm nor deny the view but referred Mining Zimbabwe to the miners themselves to have more answers.
Gold delivery to Fidelity took a knock in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year despite the fact that Fidelity is offering competitive prices.