Mines and Mining Development Minister has said under the “use it or lose it” regulations, mining titleholders are expected to declare produce that is in sync with the potential of the title.
Chitando said this in an interview with state paper the Herald in line with attaining the 12 billion Mining Industry by 2023.
“On gold we are coming up with further interventions that will be unveiled soon to stimulate gold production,” the Minister said. “To this end, there are at least two gold miners which Government expects to produce over four tonnes per year by 2023 and a few others that will top the two tonnes mark and there are investments that will be coming to meet this target”. said the Minister
“The 100 tonnes by 2023 is premised on deliveries from large scale miners and small to medium scale miners. On the large scale miners, we have a number of companies that are in the project phase to expand and also to come into production.
What is the “Use it or lose it Policy”
The use it or lose it policy is a policy aimed to force companies to develop their mining assets and not keep the land for speculative purposes.
According to the government some investors have not developed the gold and platinum assets that they had held dating back to the 1960s and the Mines and Mining Development Ministry had asked some companies to justify why they should keep their claims to those assets.
In November 2019 the Minister said “Use it or lose it is to prohibit the holding of mining title for speculative purposes. We will deal with that more vigorously,”.