Mining ZimbabweLatest Mining News, Policy and Industry Updates

HUNDREDS of artisanal miners and sex workers at Doxy Ford (Jumbo mine) in Mazowe district Mashonaland Central province have pleaded with health service providers to come to their rescue and treat them for sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

The two groups have also raised concerns over the scarcity of medicines to treat ordinary STIs like genital warts, which are prevalent in the mining compound.

“After paying the required consultation fee of US$20, you are told to go to the pharmacy to look for medication. The local pharmacies are demanding US$15 per injection and you are supposed to have five,” Clifford Moyo told NewZimbabwe.com.

“Why should we pay the fee at the local clinic when they cannot provide the medication or services. Most people are dying in silence as they cannot afford the required US$90 at a private hospital.”

Another artisanal miner Misheck Mlambo said it has become pointless for service providers to continue providing condoms because the contraceptive is hardly being used.

“We need to be treated of STIs, tanzwa mukoma, (we are suffering),” he said.

“Most of us here spend so much time underground in search of gold. When we come out, we will be craving for sex and beer.  After taking one or two beers, we end up engaging in unprotected sex and the hunger sometimes causes the poor condoms to burst.”

However, the “burst condom” theory was dismissed by one sex worker, Marjory who said artisanal miners demand unprotected sex and pay in United States dollars.

“One of the challenge is most artisanal miners do not want to use condoms, they prefer to pay US$10 for a quickie, knowing very well that the girls are suffering from STIs.

“We need behavioural change amongst ourselves. Most women here within Jumbo Mine suffer from genital warts,” said Marjory.

Jumbo Mine has thousands of artisanal miners panning for gold and besides entertaining themselves through sex, there is nothing else for them to do.

According to the National Aids Council (NAC), Mazowe district has the highest prevalence of STIs in Mashonaland Central province with other hot spots being Mazowe Flowers, Forester Estates, Caesar Mine, Bare, Nzvimbo and Hermiston farm.

Source: New Zimbabwe

Fadzi Manono fears he will never be able to bury his younger brother Witness, whose body lies deep inside a dangerous old mine in Witbank, Mpumalanga.

Witness Manono, who was an informal gold miner, was reported dead in April. He was 30 years old. Another miner told Fadzi Manono that his brother had collapsed underground in the old mine due to lack of air. The other miner had been trying to help Witness when he fell down and took his last breath.

Manono hoped the man who had helped his brother would help him get Witness’s body out. But he too died underground, according to other miners, electrocuted inside the mine.

The mine has been closed for years but Witness and the other miners found ways in.

Now Manono and his family have almost lost hope of ever retrieving the body. Security has been tightened up after the deaths of several informal miners and it is hard to get past the guards.

“Whenever I think of my brother tears roll down my cheeks, l can barely sleep at night,” says Manono, who is also an informal gold miner, working in Benoni. “All we want is to bury my brother with dignity.” Family members in the brothers’ home town of Chipinge, Zimbabwe, have been waiting for news of when the body will be brought home for burial.

Manono has been back to Witbank several times but has not been able to get in touch with other miners who were with his brother inside the mine.

“Normally other miners pull the bodies out and attach a name tag with family members’ phone numbers for mine security to find. The miner who was electrocuted had promised to help do it. But l have lost contact with the others miners who were with my brother. No one knows if they are still alive.”

Fadzi says last year a miner died inside the Benoni mine where he works. They pulled the body out with a rope and attached a name tag with the relative’s number. The family was later called by police to claim the body. The bones of many other dead miners remain unclaimed underground, he says.

He last saw Witness in 2015 when he left Benoni to seek gold in Witbank. Since then they had communicated occasionally by phone.

Manono says his brother and the other miners would live and sleep inside the mine, some for months. Using the electricity supply from an old mine building, they would connect gold refining machinery inside the mine. They would rely on the dealers to whom they sold the gold to bring them food. But sometimes security guards would confiscate the food and chase the dealers out of the area. Manono says miners would sometimes go for months without adequate food and it was difficult to cook because of the danger of gas explosions underground.

Manono says he had tried to persuade Witness to come to Benoni where, he says, the mines are safer.

“He refused to return until he had reached his target. His aim was to build a house at our rural home in Chipinge.”

Witness had become an informal miner in 2008, first mining diamonds in Chiyadzwa, Zimbabwe. He came to South Africa in 2011 and settled in Benoni to try his luck at gold mining. Later his brother, who had been working as a painter in Johannesburg, joined him.

“In 2013 Witness heard that there was lots of gold to be found in Witbank, and he decided to go there. Things went well in 2014 and my brother bought a lot of things.”

Manono says Witness had promised that once he had reached his savings target he would quit mining.

“Little did I know that he would never return.”

Source: citizen.co.za

The government’s decision to reintroduce the local currency two months ago has left workers in the mining sector underpaid and impoverished, a union leader has said.

According to the Zimbabwe Diamond and Allied Minerals Workers Union (ZIDAMWU), mineworkers have been turned into the least paid employees in the country following the decision to discontinue the multi-currency regime.

“It is with great concern that employees in this industry are being underpaid as a result of the grave effects of Statutory Instrument (SI/142) of 2019 and SI 33 of 2019,” ZIDAMWU secretary-general Justice Chinhema said in a letter addressed to the National Employment Council for the Mining Industry, recently.

In July, Treasury gazetted SI 142 of 2019 that designated the local currency as sole legal tender in the country while banning the use of the US dollar in particular that had dominated the local market since introduction in 2009.

Said Chinhema: “The wages have arbitrarily dropped resulting in many people failing to cope with the inflationary pressures.

“It is our belief that the effects of the aforementioned Statutory Instrument are a result of misinterpretation by the employers.”

He said there should be a way of balancing to provide for sustainable wages given that some mining houses especially gold producers are keeping a percentage of their proceeds in hard currency only to turn around and pay their workers all in the local unit.

“Gold mining companies are retaining 45% in local currency and 55 % in US$ when they sell their proceeds to Fidelity. The 45 % retained in local currency is paid at the interbank market rate.

“However, the basic wage of the worker has not been given due consideration despite the devaluation caused by the statutory instrument. This means employers are benefiting from the SI at the expense of the workers,” he said.

African Chrome Fields owner Zunaid Moti, says he is under increasing international pressure to pull out of Zimbabwe.

He claims global negativity about Zimbabwe and the failing economy are affecting operations at African Chrome Fields in Kwekwe, where the Moti Group has invested more than $250m.

“There is a lot of pressure out there. People ask why we’re in business in Zimbabwe,” Moti said. “That has affected our ratings. Some people wouldn’t want to do business with us because we are in Zimbabwe.”

Zimbabwe is ranked 45th in Africa and 175th in the world on the economic freedom risk indicator, according to global think tank Trading Economics.

Moti’s legal adviser, Ashruf Kaka, said this was borne out by his employer’s experience. “If you invest in Zimbabwe you get stuck,” he said. “You can’t take out your money or rather realise profits because of the failing RTGS (realtime gross settlement) dollar that replaced the American dollar.”

When RTGS became the official currency three months ago, foreign currency was outlawed.

But the Zimbabwe dollar, which started trading at ZWL$6.50 against the US dollar on the interbank market in July is now trading at ZWL$14, and on the black market US$1 costs as much as ZWL$20.

Kaka said the ban on US dollars had brought African Chrome Fields to a standstill. “The situation got so bad that we couldn’t procure spare parts from China and other countries because we were trading in the volatile RTGS currency,” he said.

“Had it been a proper dollar economy, we would be fully operational. Unless and until economic and political reforms are adhered to, Zimbabwe will be a bad investment destination.”

At its peak, African Chrome Fields employed about 1 600 people and produced more than 30 000t of chrome a month, exporting all of it to SA for value addition and beneficiation. The company has since laid off 250 and about 600 more have left.

Moti’s fears for the future of Zimbabwe were echoed last month by his group’s former special adviser on Zimbabwe, Lord Peter Hain, who said Mnangagwa’s rule had been “disastrous”.

This was a sharp reversal from his position before he left the Moti group in February when he said: “Zimbabwe could rise from the ashes.”

The Moti Group’s operations in Zimbabwe had “national project” status, meaning it could procure fuel and machinery duty-free.

It also enjoyed close relations with the country’s rulers, having entered the country when Mnangagwa was Vice President. Source: INSIDER ZIM