Zimpapers Logo

Bianca Mlilo: Business Reporter
THE government should invest more on empowerment of small scale miners to facilitate speedy formalisation of their sector and increased output, members of the National Assembly have said.

Discussing in Parliament the legislators complained over “lack of recognition and inclusion” of small scale miners in the formal sector, which they blamed for fuelling smuggling.

Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee for Higher and Tertiary Education Peter Mataruse said the proposed establishment of a Pan African Minerals University of Science and Technology (Pamust) should prioritise capacitating small scale miners.

He said it was the role of every university to solve societal problems without undue limitation, adding that those who are already working as small scale miners may benefit and improve their skills in the field of mining.

“Those that are already in the mining sector who’re already working on their experience as small scale and artisanal miners may as well benefit and improve their skills in the field of mining,” said Mataruse.

Dexter Nduna, the MP for Chegutu West said the exclusion of artisanal miners was detrimental to the economy of Zimbabwe.

“As long as the artisanal miners have been sidelined, that expertise can’t be imported from informal to the formal sector.

When we speak of exploration; when we speak of mining and optimal utilisation of our resources, we speak to those that are experienced,” he said.

“For as long as we leave artisanal miners in the fringes of our mining activities, universities and institutions of higher learning, we’re marginalising our own economy, not only now, but for the future because these are the people that are engaged en masse in the resources extraction and in resource mobilisation, which is what our economy is skewed towards.”

Nduna said continental integration would be unattainable as long as artisanal miners were sidelined and left in the periphery of mining activities.

He added that artisanal miners had been recognised in Ghana and other African countries and urged Zimbabwe to follow suit.

“When the rand fell South Africa was very clever.

They started buying our gold from artisanal miners and our makorokozas, at a premium of 15 percent more than the value of our gold here in Zimbabwe because they are benefiting from our own people that we are sidelining,” he said.

The increased buying price, he said, fuelled smuggling of the precious metal.

Shamva South MP Joseph Mapiki said: “Most of the revenue right now is coming from the SMEs. So, likewise we should ensure that artisanal miners also gain education, skills and technology to ensure that money comes from them.

If we sit back and think that Anglo American and other multi-national companies will come, we are losing it; we know they will not come here.

“So, we need to look at the issue of empowering the small miners. I think 60 percent of the gold that is going to Fidelity is coming from them and in six months they are raking in quite a lot of gold.”

Pamust will be established as one of four specialised African universities under the Nelson Mandela Institute of Excellence, dedicated to the teaching and training of very high calibre mineral professionals in mineral beneficiation and value addition for Africa.