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Harare Bureau
THE Zimbabwe Diamond and Allied Mineral Workers Union (ZDAMWU) has requested the Mining Industry Pension Fund (MIPF) and the National Employment Council (NEC) to produce audited financial statements from 2015, as the workers lobby group seeks to enhance monitoring mechanisms for mining workers’ retirement savings.

The request follows concerns that some mining companies were not remitting their employees’ pension funds despite deduction of the money from their monthly earnings.

According to ZDAMWU, the petition was necessitated by the need to establish a monitoring mechanism that ensures smooth management of mine workers’ pension contributions to MIPF in accordance with section 26 of the Insurance and Providence Fund Act.

In a letter to MIPF, ZDAMWU secretary-general Justice Chinhema said:

“You are aware that we have members in the mining industry, who are also                                                          financial contributors to the MIPF on a monthly basis.

“Our members are interested in the smooth running of the affairs of the MIPF to which they are members. They have asked us to request audited financial statements from the year 2015. This request is in line with provisions of the Insurance and Providence Fund Act.”

ZDAMWU also sent a similar request to the NEC for the period since 2015, arguing that the mine workers contribute to the NEC on a monthly basis, thus need to monitor the use of funds they contribute.

“It is in our members’ interest to see if there are detrimental issues on the financial management of their NEC,” said Mr Chinhema in a letter directed separately to the NEC.

MIPF is a self-administered defined contribution pension fund set up in 1952 to provide retirement income for employees in the mining industry upon attainment of prescribed retirement ages.

The fund was set up following a collective bargaining agreement between representatives of employers and those of employees in the mining industry.

It had an active membership of 22 495 and 42 139 deferred members, 8 080 preserved members, and 11 782 pensioners with 143 employer members subscribing to the fund as at December 31, 2020.

This comes at a time Zimbabwe is witnessing proliferation of mining companies dominated by Chinese operations whose recognition for local labour laws is negligible.