Ministry vows to address all challenges faced by miners
The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development through its Permanent Secretary Mr Pfungwa Kunaka has promised to address all the challenges being faced by the Artisanal and Small-Scale Miners (ASM) in Zimbabwe by actively engaging the Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF).
Rudairo Mapuranga
In his vote of thanks regards after meeting the Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) Provincial executives at the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development Headquarters in Harare, the Permanent Secretary said engagement will go a long way in addressing all the challenges being faced by small-scale miners.
He said his Ministry will see through issues of Exclusive Prospecting Orders (EPOs) and how they can be managed to ensure miners are not affected and also ensure that the issues to do with the delays in issuing mining titles are addressed.
“The engagement helps in policy formulation and also helps in addressing all the challenges that we are facing, talk of safety, our legal framework, talk of all the issues of EPOs and title management. What we intend to do as a Ministry is to sit together and discuss these matters. The key issue is we want our small-scale miners to grow, it is our encouragement that all our miners associate under the umbrella bodies, we know we have the Chamber of Mines and small-scale we want them to be under the Zimbabwe Miners Federation irrespective of sector. Thank you so much our technical teams have taken note of all your issues and we feel that we miss a lot when not engaging,” Kunaka said.
ZMF President Ms Henrietta Rushwaya through her closing remarks after the engagement meeting said the engagements if treated with respect will go a long way in the achievement of mining growth and development.
“As the Zimbabwe Miners Federation we feel that we will avoid a lot of unwarranted deaths through safety issues, we will avoid a lot of illegal mining through non-issuance of mining certificates and we will avoid a lot of downtime being wasted by our people waiting for the issuance of Mining Certificates when the Ministry is wholly involved and our people are actively involved we will achieve a milestone in the mining sector,” Rushwaya said.