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Farmers demand mineral rights

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FARMERS in Matabeleland have called on the government to scrap the Mines and Minerals Act arguing that it does not give farmers mineral rights for precious metals on their properties.

FARMERS in Matabeleland have called on the government to scrap the Mines and Minerals Act arguing that it does not give farmers mineral rights for precious metals on their properties.

Report by Pamela Mhlanga Own correspondent

The call was made by disgruntled farmers at a Livestock Industry Stakeholders consultation meeting held at the ZITF Agricultural Chambers in Bulawayo yesterday.

Farmers said they were putting their weight behind Mines and Mining development minister Obert Mpofu’s efforts to enact a law that will give farmers rights over minerals on their farms.

“The Mines and Minerals Act is unfair to farmers as the prospectors are the ones who are given rights to mine on farmers’ lands without their consent. The landowners are, therefore, left to the mercy of the prospectors who just get into the farmers’ lands and cause destruction,” the Matabeleland Agricultural Business Chamber (MABC) interim president Earnest Ndlovu said.

Ndlovu said degradation of their farms by prospectors and gold panners had left their land unproductive.

“The prospectors also usually cut perimeter fences that protect farmers’ animals such that animals are let loose on the roads where they are harmed,” he said.

“The miners willy-nilly mine gold without the farmers’ consent when the farmers are the ones who pay land taxes. Miners do not pay because they will not be registered.”

Mpofu early this month said the government will soon grant mining rights to farmers on whose land mineral deposits were discovered, a move meant to empower farmers and also prevent disputes between farmers and mineral prospectors.

At the same event, the farmers chastised the government for having many different structures that were collecting exhorbitant amounts of levies and fees from them — a move viewed as meant to fleece them.

“We called upon the Minister of Agriculture to come up with one body instead of having various bodies such as Department of Vetenary Services, Agricultural Marketing Authority, Rural District Councils and Environmental Management Agency,” said one of the farmers.