ZMF to champion the liberalisation of gemstones
Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) has formed a special purpose vehicle to represent the interests of miners and stakeholders in the semi-precious stone industry through the formulation of a semi-precious policy, ZMF spoke person Dosman Mangisi has said.
Rudairo Dickson Mapuranga
Mangisi said that the special purpose vehicle will represent the interests of miners and stakeholders in the industry from beneficiating, marketing, and cutting to polishing of the stones.
“This is a special purpose vehicle formed by ZMF to represent the interests of the miners and stakeholders in the industry. The SPV will represent ZMF in championing the liberalisation of the semi-precious industry through the formulation of a semi-precious policy, beneficiating, marketing and selling of the products and also advocate for the opening of a cutting and polishing school ” said Mangisi.
Mangisi said that ZMF has already done feasibility of the Gemstone sector, have found out that the sector needs technical training to mine gemstones, identification of the stones, and also value addition and beneficiation that is, the need to train in cutting and polishing the stones up to creating an open market.
“The SPV has already been formed, a pre-feasibility study has already been done by ZMF. Need analysis, which ranges from technical training to mine the Gemstones, that is extraction of the Gemstones and gemstones identification and classification, and also to carry out value addition and beneficiation. The need to train in cutting and polishing, also to have an open market for the Gemstones” said Mangisi
ZMF is mobilising all artisanal and small scale miners in the Gemstone mining sector to register their mining endeavors with the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) to achieve the benefits of gemstones in Zimbabwe.
“The exercise will be carried out in conjunction with MMCZ, which has the mandate to market the minerals in Zimbabwe. ZMF is working flat out to mobilise artisanal and small scale miners for semi-precious. Also encouraging them to fill forms that have been already designed by MMCZ. Miners and agents are all required to fill in the forms” Mangisi said.