GOVERNMENT has stepped up efforts to equip small-scale gold miners using agriculture industry-inspired methods such as equipment loans, an official has said.
Small-scale gold miners have made significant contributions over the years to the industry, which is today recognised as a critical pillar, second only to agriculture, to the swift economic turnaround of the nation.
“We are looking at capacitating the miners directly through a loan scheme for equipment and other working capital requirements. This will be accessed throughout mining provinces,” Mines and Mining Development permanent secretary Pfungwa Kunaka told NewsDay Business.
“We will take models such as those in agriculture where farmers are capacitated and we have seen the results of capacitation in farming. We believe in gold we can also have that kind of development benefit.”
The secretary said they started a gold mobilisation exercise to boost output.
“We have undertaken some exercises which go province by province targeting mines, checking systems and activities and also addressing areas of leakages,” he said.
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Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) chief executive officer Wellington Takavarasha said small-scale miners needed basic start-up equipment to raise outout.
“Small-scale miners require basic start-up equipment to improve the sector’s operations and the government has been assisting the small-scale miner with loan schemes. We are not going to be giving money but equipment so that they move away from using manual tools to more modern equipment and this will enhance the sector’s capacity to meet the government’s target,” he said.
“As ZMF, we will be identifying potential miners through our provincial structures, those who are capable and who will be able to pay back the money. So, the assessment is being done and successful miners will get the equipment and it’s more like a mechanisation programme,” he added.
State-owned gold buyer, Fidelity Gold Refinery (FGR) general manager Peter Magaramombe early this year told our sister paper, Zimbabwe Independent that the company received 35 tonnes of gold in 2022, an increase of 18,9% from the same period in 2021.
“We have projected the gold deliveries in 2023 to reach 40 000kg, an increase of 4 700kg or 13,4% on 2022 gold deliveries,” Magaramombe said.
He said the increase in deliveries would be anchored by an expansion programme where additional gold buying centres would be opened in active regions to widen the existing catchment area while providing convenience to producers within targeted regions.
“FGR will continue to provide a competitive pricing framework benchmarked to the London Bullion Market Association prices at a discount of 5%,” Magaramombe said.
He indicated that Fidelity would continue to offer United States dollar spot cash payments for gold lodgements to ensure that small-scale gold producers are not constrained.
There are over 4 000 recorded gold deposits in Zimbabwe of which nearly all of them are located in ancient workings.
The country remains under-explored to discover deposits away from these ancient workings.
More than 90% of gold deposits in Zimbabwe are associated with greenstone belts which are some of the richest in the world.
Other gold deposits occur in the Limpopo Mobile Belt in the south of the country and the Proterozoic Piriwiri rocks in the north-western part of Zimbabwe.