Miners have saluted the continued improvement of services offered by the country’s sole gold buyer and exporter, Fidelity Gold Refinery (FGR) which has seen gold deliveries increasing significantly.
Speaking at the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Mining Development, All Stakeholders Workshop on the Gold sector Value chain held in Kariba today, Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) Chief Executive Officer Wellington Takavarasha said cash payments by FGR have vastly improved significantly and have encouraged miners to deliver their gold to the country’s gold buyer and exporter as well as allowing them to reinvest the money into mining on time.
“FGR cash payments that have improved encouraged gold deliveries,” Takavarasha said.
ZMF CEO also said that the continued gold deliveries also result from the 5 per cent incentives offered to miners and an increase in gold buying centres. The artisanal and small-scale miners also benefit from an increase in the foreign currency retention threshold.
“FGR cash payments that have improved. The continued 5% incentives that were initiated in June 2021-incremental with threshold increases. Increasing gold buying centres by FGR,” he said.
Chamber of Mines Zimbabwe Chief Executive Officer Isaac Kwesu also echoed the same sentiments. However, he said some miners were still complaining that FGR was still slow in payments.
“While the payments situation for gold deliveries to FPR has improved, some gold producers have reported having experienced some payment delays. There is a need for timeous payments for gold deliveries to avoid working capital shortages which cause production disruptions,” Kwesu said.
Gold deliveries during the first half of the year increase by 57.5272 per cent to 15 796.7193 Kgs from 10 027.9283 delivered in 2021 with Small scale miners accounting for 10 478.3106 kgs from 4 874.44415 kgs delivered last year, while large scale miners accounted for 5 498.4087 kgs from 5 153.4868 kgs delivered the previous year.
Gold deliveries in June however decreased by 5.20227 per cent to 2 805 kgs from 2 959.0733 kgs delivered in June 2021. ASM deliveries however increased to 1 968.0192 from 1 833.4697 delivered in June 2021 with the large-scale deliveries decreasing significantly to 837.1151 from 1 125.6036 delivered in June of the previous year.
In May 2022 total deliveries to FGR increased by 79.5403 kgs per cent to 2994.7512 from 1668.0102 kgs delivered in May 2021, with small-scale miners accounting for 1 939.0712 kgs from 783.8105 kgs delivered in May the previous year while large scale miners delivered 1 055.6800 kgs from 884.1997 kgs delivered the previous year.
FGR figures show that in April 2022 gold deliveries increased by 3.71761 per cent to 1621.9712 kgs from 1563.8339 kgs in March while Large scale producers’ deliveries decreased by 14.1343 per cent to 859.4400 kgs from 1000.9122 kgs produced in March.
The statistics show that overall deliveries to Fidelity in April decreased by 3.24925 per cent to 2481.4112 Kgs from 2564.7461 kgs delivered in March.
During the first quarter of 2022 gold deliveries jumped 92 per cent to 7.695 tonnes from 4.016 tonnes in the comparable period of 2021.
The March 2022 gold output spiked 39 per cent to 2.564 tonnes from 1.8 tonnes achieved during the comparable period following the 5 per cent mining incentives put in place by the central bank.
Of the 7.695 tonnes delivered during the first quarter of 2022, small-scale miners delivered 4.949 tonnes against 2.746 tonnes from large-scale miners.
Large gold producers delivered 11,2 tonnes to Fidelity in 2021 whilst small-scale producers contributed 18,5 tonnes. The highest tonnage of gold was delivered in the fourth quarter when small-scale miners delivered a record 7,6 tonnes, whilst primary producers weighed in with 3,1 tonnes.