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Minister Walter Chidhakwa

Prosper Ndlovu, Business Editor
MINES and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa has said the Government will not regularise operations of gold panners popularly known as amakorokoza, warning that doing so would create disorder in the sector.

While acknowledging calls to decriminalise gold panning, the minister said illegal mining operations thrive at the expense of registered operators.

“There are always requests for us to regularise amakorokoza where ever they are. I want to say that we cannot do that because there are people who go to the offices and apply properly for their certificates and they are issued with certificates.

“Somebody then walks onto the same ground and says ‘I want you to regularise me’ on a ground that has already been given to another person. Let us not do that,” said the minister.

He told delegates during a briefing on the state of the mining sector at the Zanu-PF annual national people’s conference in Masvingo last week that Government would rather allocate fresh claims to new players than allow panners to disadvantage registered operators.

“It is for that reason that Cabinet approved the release of 2.3 million hectares of land, which was under reserved areas for allocation to anybody who wishes to mine gold. So let us not take concessions that belong to others. Let us go for the new concessions,” said Minister Chidhakwa.

He said the 24-tonne gold production target for 2016 would be met and reported that the country was already at around 23 tonnes. The minister said miners missed buying gold by about a tonne in September due to foreign currency problems.

He said next year Government would ensure revival of all State companies that are supposed to mine gold and are sitting on idle concessions.

“I want people to know that we will not release that ground to the private sector because doing so will be to defeat the idea of resuscitating our Government companies for gold production,” said Minister Chidhakwa.

He reported that since January to date the mining sector has exported about $1.76 billion worth of minerals compared to $1.6 billion, which was an extra of $153 million compared to 2015.

“The major producers of our mining sector output were first and foremost gold, which accounted for about 43 percent of our exports, followed by platinum, which accounted for another 42 percent of exports. The rest is distributed on the other smaller minerals,” said the minister.

On average the mining sector in Zimbabwe accounts for about 59.4 percent of total exports receipts. Over the years gold has become a significant player with more output coming from small scale producers. A recent survey by the Chamber of Mines Zimbabwe indicates that capacity utilisation in the gold mining sub-sector has clocked 79 percent from around 77 percent in 2015.

As such Minister Chidhakwa said more efforts should be directed at empowering and capacitating small gold mines so that they produce more.

“If yesterday Zimbabwe’s mining sector was controlled by a few companies, today it is controlled by hundreds of companies, the majority of whom are owned by our small scale miners,” he said.

“It is therefore more important that our policies must be geared towards ensuring that the small scale companies are given the necessary expertise, knowledge and equipment to progress them further. Not to do that is not to develop the sector and not to do that would be a tragedy for our economy.”