Small scale and artisanal miners (ASM) have the potential to deliver over 25 tonnes of gold to the country’s sole gold buyer and exporter Fidelity Gold Refinery (FGR) in 2022, Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) CEO Mr Wellington Takavarasha has said.
Rudairo Mapuranga
According to Takavarasha, the miners are responding well to the government’s 2023 vision which has seen ASM increasing their production capacity.
“There is a government will to promote small-scale and artisanal miners. We have started on a high note as small-scale miners have already submitted 2.4 tonnes (unconfirmed) of gold this year. There is a commitment from miners to make sure that gold deliveries increase,” the ZMF CEO said.
Takavarasha said ZMF was going to engage other stakeholders like the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and the Rural District Councils (RDC) to lower their fees for the small-scale and artisanal mining sector to encourage their growth.
“We will also continue to engage other stakeholders like EMA and RDCZ,” he said.
The ZMF Chief said the determination by the Ministry of Mines and Mining development in supporting the formalisation and regularisation drive to enhance a revolution in the ASM sector was encouraging to the miners.
He said that the Ministry has put a committee on formalisation and is going to hold a two-day workshop pondering on what needs to be done to have a reliable and sustainable small scale and artisanal mining sector that has the capacity to revive the economy of Zimbabwe towards the 2030 mining vision.
“The Ministry of Mines has put a committee for formalisation, there is going to be a two-day workshop on formalisation meaning the government is willing to support the small scale miners. The RBZ for the first time also put out a statement appreciating small scale miners,” Takavarasha said.
Through the National Development Strategy_1 (NDS_1) where the country is expected to become an upper-middle-income economy by 2030, the mining sector is expected to fetch an annual revenue of US$12 Billion by 2023. The small-scale mining sector through ZMF has vowed to contribute annual revenue of US$4 billion of the US$12 billion mining industry.
ZMF is by far Zimbabwe’s biggest mining body with a membership of over 1 million.
