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commended hoping that the ban will gradually be extended to exports of other non-renewable mineral ores found in Zimbabwe.
Since the advent of slavery and even before that, white traders have been actively involved in grabbing raw minerals from Africa which they will ship out in large quantities to various Western destinations to feed their insatiable and ever growing industries.

During colonial times the trend never slackened but had in fact gained unparalleled pace with Africa’s minerals being systematically siphoned for the benefit of colonial powers.
After independence, imperial companies remained operational and continued to export our raw minerals to various world destinations with our tacit but myopic approval. We erroneously thought we were in mutual business partnership with these companies not knowing that they were actually getting a lion’s share of the value of our minerals.

Rudimentary economics inform us that a country gains less by exporting an unrefined mineral than exporting a refined one. Actually it is estimated that by exporting raw minerals, we merely get 20 percent of its value while the remaining 80 percent accrues to the processing countries.
At this rate, we are cheaply donating our mineral wealth to an ungrateful industrialised world that continues to see us as second class world citizens destined to provide cheap labour to capitalism.

A visit to Mhangura, Shamva, Kamativi, Zvishavane and other mining towns will leave one distraught and evidently disillusioned to the unconscionable practice of exporting ship loads of unrefined minerals to foreign destinations.
These mining towns have nothing to show for the loads of unprocessed minerals that have continually been siphoned out of their enclave to various world destinations.

What is apparent is the fact that the communities remained entrapped in eternal poverty with no meaningful infrastructural development.
They live in shanty compound settings characterised by communal water points and toilets. Their roads are inaccessible and their health facilities together with their educational facilities are in a sorry state.
Through the twin evils of colonialism and capitalism, local people have been conditioned to be thankful of being menial labour providers with totally nothing to show for their sweat, the depletion of their natural resources and late alone the irreparable damage to their environment.

In this context, the story of the moribund Kamativi town becomes an unmitigated example of a mining community that was left in dire poverty after foreign miners withdrew their operations due to some opaque reasons. When the mine closed, the community became devastated as its livelihood was exclusively intertwined to the life of the mine.
The people lost their source of employment and the town crumbled to an impoverished standstill. It is vexatious that after innumerable years of enriching the world with its good quality tin, Kamativi become a

“ghost town” with no other means of self sustenance.
Juxtaposed to the gargantuan wealth of the processing countries like United States and Britain, the unenviable poverty of our mining communities becomes stark and legendary.
It is disheartening that while we feed world industries with vital raw materials we remain poor and even fail to access the by-products made directly from our minerals.

Against this background, Zimbabwe is set to benefit more by blocking mineral ore exports and adopt the principle of value addition. This principle entails the setting up of mineral processing facilities that will have positive ramifications to our economy.
Processing industries do not only result in the creation of more employment to local people but also facilitate the transfer of latest technology into the country. Naturally this will see our country developing into a self-reliant industrialised nation.

Value addition also alleviates the burden of importing finished products from other countries and thus reduces our import bill.
Cognisant of the foregoing, it becomes imperative for government not only to maintain the ban on chrome exports but to gradually extent the ban to exports in other minerals mined in the country.
In the same breath, we may also suggest that any new mining deals should include a prerequisite clause that enjoins the investors to set up complementary processing plants in addition to extracting our minerals.

In this context, we applaud deals like the Ziscosteel-Essar (NEWZIM Steel) deal which saw the Indian Investors declaring that they will provide funding for the construction of a large scale steel processing plant in Chivhu.

The company revealed that among other benefits, the beneficiation plant would create employment for 3500 people from the surrounding community.
In its papers, the steel company also envisaged that the beneficiation process would convert raw ore into a product that can be marketed internationally. The value of the beneficiated ore will increase by 500 percent resulting in a higher value product that will irrefutably benefit our economy.
Similarly, we also applaud efforts by some diamond companies to set up diamond cutting and polishing facilities meant to add value to our abundant rough diamonds.

Like the steel company, the diamond companies will not only create employment but transfer latest beneficiation technology into the country.
It should be noted that these mineral processing centres will not only be used to refine local minerals alone but could also be used to refine minerals from other countries without these facilities.
Again, in the event of depletion of our local mineral reserves, the communities will have something to fall back on as they will continue to benefit from processing raw minerals imported from other countries thus

keeping them alive and immune from evanescing into “ghost towns”.
The ban on chrome ore exports should be a first step in a deliberate process to plug the subtle looting of our God given mineral resources.

Commodity trading has become the bane of Africa’s eternal poverty and famine.
Regardless of its rich mineral reserves, Africa has remained a continent of beggars who are irretrievably dependant on aid from the mineral processing countries.

It is therefore imperative for us to systematically and gradually stop the exporting of all raw minerals and supplant it with exporting refined minerals that fetch better prices at world markets for the benefit of our revenue inflows.