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Charity Ruzvidzo Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Council (ZASMC) has called on the government to speed up the formalisation of artisanal miners. ZASMC president Wellington Takavarasha told Business Chronicle yesterday that the government was losing a lot of revenue as gold from artisanal miners was being illicitly traded.

“The government is being deprived of revenue, artisanal and small-scale miners in some instances trade their gold through illegal means because they’re not allowed to trade with Fidelity Printers,” he said.

Takavarasha said if artisanal miners were given mining permits, gold production would increase.

“Small-scale and artisanal miners have the potential to contribute to the increase in gold production. The major challenge they’re facing is lack of formalisation and sense of identity,” he said.

He said the use of antiquated machinery was another constraint affecting small-scale miners’ operations.

“Small-scale miners are using old machinery which affects their production. The government should assist small-scale miners by ensuring they’ve access to funds that can assist them to procure modern machinery,” he said.

ZASMC estimates that the artisanal and small-scale mining sector directly employs about 500,000 people in Zimbabwe on a full time, seasonal or occasional basis.

The government is working on amending the Mines and Minerals Act, to make it more flexible, bolster growth and development in the mining sector.

The Act is to be replaced with a mining development policy that would give formal recognition to small-scale miners as part of moves to indigenise the sector.

The African Development Bank said gold deliveries from January to October 2014 were 11.11 tonnes, surpassing the 10 tonnes required for the country to be reaccredited into the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA).

Zimbabwe was suspended from the LBMA in 2008 after gold output plunged to three tonnes and since then, has been exporting its gold through South Africa’s Rand Refinery.

Fidelity Printers and Refiners, a unit of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, was re-opened last year following years of redundancy resulting from undercapitalisation and the liberalisation of gold exports in 2009.