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Wellington Takavarasha

Roberta Katunga, Senior Business Reporter
THE government has introduced a special purpose vehicle to manage operations at Silobela’s Peace Mine which will pave way for the resumption of operations.

This follows the suspension of operations after a breach of the Mines and Minerals Regulations Act.

Officials from the mine and the Zimbabwe Miners Federation held a meeting with Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa recently to discuss the latest developments at the mine which is owned by the Silobela Community.

In an interview, ZMF chief executive officer Wellington Takavarasha said a new set up had been put in place allowing the Zimbabwe School of Mines, Silobela Community Trust and Yagden Engineering to run operations under its new name View Rise Private Limited.

“The Ministry of Mines has requested Mwana Africa (Asa Resources) to transfer all the relevant papers to the new company which is effective from March 30. Security systems as well as a new management have been put in place,” said Takavarasha.

He said Minister Chidhakwa would officially re-open the mine this month and alluded to the fact that if the new model is successful, it will be adopted nationally.

Takavarasha said there was disgruntlement at Peace Mine by members of the Silobela community who are beneficiaries of the gold.

The community raised issues of non-transparency and interference by management.

“ZMF was given the mandate to take over the mine after lack of proper systems and corporate governance structures raised accountability issues. A gold milling plant was installed at the mine through a partnership with Yagden Engineering,” Takavarasha said.

There were also fears that some gold could be smuggled out of the country.

Youths in the Silobela area take turns to extract gold at the mine under the government’s programme to empower youths.

The artisanal mining project was kick-started in December 2013 after Mwana Africa gave a small claim to the Silobela community enabling the creation of a community trust.

The mine has over 1,000 artisanal miners and produces an average of seven kilogrammes of gold per month.

Peace Mine, now View Rise, is being used by the government as a pilot project to come up with a model to formalise small scale and artisanal miners in the country.

The licensing of artisanal miners is set to bring sanity to the small-scale gold sector and enable the government to mop all the gold in the hands of informal and unregistered miners.