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Minister Walter Chidhakwa

Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
MINES and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa says the $1 million required to do preliminary work ahead of the resuscitation of Kamativi Tin Mine has been released and a team of geologists is already on the ground.

In 2015, the Government announced that a new investor, China Beijing Pinchang, was set to invest $102 million into the revival of Kamativi Tin Mine.

The mine, which was wholly owned by the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC), ceased operations in 1994 after the price of tin on the international market fell overnight from about $18 000 per tonne to less than $3 000.

The mineral’s price is now pegged at between $17 000 and $22 000 per tonne. Kamativi Tin Mine was opened in 1936.

Minister Chidhakwa told Parliament on Wednesday that the investors have released funding for the Kamativi Mine project although it took a bit of time.

“There was a requirement to release         $1 million which would be used to do the preliminary work; geological work to establish the ground and what it has. That money was released. It took a bit of time but it was released and a team of eight geologists; four Zimbabwean geologists and another four from China spent six months at Kamativi working on the geology. Their report came out at the end of December 2016,” he said.

Minister Chidhakwa is on record as saying as the mine re-opens, seven other minerals among them tantalite and lithium would also be exploited.

— @okazunga