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Mr Wellington Takavarasha

Shamiso Dzingire, Business Reporter
ZIMBABWE Motivational Mining Group (ZMM) and the Zimbabwe Miners’ Federation (ZMF) have embarked on a project to capacitate small-scale chrome miners.

The programme will see small-scale chrome miners being capacitated from beneficiary identification to the last stage of payment.

This was revealed by ZMF chief executive officer Mr Wellington Takavarasha during a meeting between ZMF and ZMM last week.

According to minutes of the meeting, the project will kick off at the end of this month while the main launch will be held mid-January next year. ZMM is owned by the South African based Moti-Group Company.

“This programme will see small-scale chrome sector production and beneficiation levels grow in line with the economic fundamentals,” said Mr Takavarasha.

During the meeting, ZMF and ZMM also agreed to design a Memorandum of Agreement which is being drawn by representatives of both organisations.

As part of efforts to empower and promote the small-scale chrome miners, ZMM is preparing logistical arrangements for infrastructural development and has set up massive chrome mining equipment acquisitions with funding already secured.

In Zimbabwe, chrome mining is concentrated in the Great Dyke which contains an estimated 10 billion tonnes of reserves.

During the first two-year operation from 2015, ZMM had challenges in getting product from the small-scale miners.

To address this challenge, the company invested $50 million to enhance small-scale mining operations in the small-scale chrome mining sub-sector. The company also invested $10 million for small-scale gold operations.

Last year, small-scale chrome miners wrote to the Government complaining about the country’s chrome pricing regime and mining cost contradictions.

The Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) has formed a chrome ore pricing committee that will be tasked with setting up minimum floor prices for all chrome exports.

The move is in line with Government’s call to maximise returns on the country’s rich mineral deposits some of which have been shipped out of the country with very little benefit for locals.

Meanwhile, the MMCZ is confident of clocking one million tonnes of chrome ore sales for 2018 having managed to ship out just over 405 000 tonnes in the first half of the year.

@ShamisoDzingire