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Minister Walter Chidhakwa

Lovemore Zigara Midlands Correspondent
THE Zimbabwe School of Mines will soon roll out training programmes for small scale miners as part of the government efforts to improve the technical expertise in the sector, a Cabinet Minister has said.

Speaking in Zvishavane during the handover of mining equipment from Mimosa mines to small scale miners recently, Mines and Mining Development Minister, Walter Chidhakwa said the government had come up with a special package for the training of small scale miners.

“We have given the School of Mines instructions to say ‘we want you to be mobile.’ We want you to have buses that go round with modular training programmes that come and park in Zvishavane and say ‘can people come for training on how to produce gold.’

“We want to ensure that the small scale miners have the technical expertise on how to exploit the minerals and they should do that in a safe environment. We have created a special package for training our small scale miners.

“The principal of the School of Mines has already finished producing the brochures and now they are preparing to go out so that they can give you the technical know-how of how best to mine gold and other minerals,” he said.

Minister Chidhakwa’s remarks come at a time when gold deliveries to Fidelity Printers and Refineries by the small scale miners have soared to 3,700 kg in July from 1,570 kg in January.

Percy Sibanda chairman of the Zvishavane – Mberengwa Mining Trust which has 143 miners who are going to benefit from the equipment called on the government to review the prospectors’ licence fees, which he said are beyond the reach of small scale miners.

“We are calling on you honourable minister to remove certain areas from the reserved areas list which is inhibiting some new claims to be registered. The $2,000 in total for energy explosives purchasing and storage permits is haunting small scale miners because it is beyond their reach,” said Sibanda. He said the prospectors’ licences, which have been pegged at $350 were very high adding: “The $800 custom milling licence will come back to haunt small scale miners because they will be forced to pay $4 to $5 an hour which will affect the viability of the gold sector.”

Mimosa Mines donated equipment that included a Mahindra pickup truck, jack hammers and compressors.