THE mining sector will surpass the 20 tonnes target set by government for gold production in 2016, with half of the production coming from the small-scale miners, Zimbabwe Miners’ Federation (ZMF) national chairperson, Lufeyi Shato has said. BY TARISAI MANDIZHA
Speaking at the Zimbabwe Environment and Mining Institute workshop in Harare yesterday, Shato said the gold sector had 20 000 miners already operating in Zimbabwe and were contributing quite a lot to the fiscus.
“This sector (mining) alone managed to produce 17 tonnes of gold and by year end will be able to reach 18 tonnes of gold. We are going to surpass the 20 tonnes target next year,” he said.
“I think we are going to surpass the 20 tonnes of gold target which government has put in place, From the 20 tonnes, 10 tonnes will be coming from small-scale miners.”
Shato, however, said the small scale miners were facing a number of challenges that include shortage of financing, lack of machinery and power outages.
He said from a cost of doing business analysis, a small scale miner requires $25 000 per annum to operate legally.
Shato added that the cost of production was very high and that dollarisation also meant that everything had gone up.
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In his 2016 National Budget, Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa said the mining sector was expected to rebound, growing by 2,4%, on the back of planned investments, and largely driven by strong performance of gold, chrome, coal, nickel, platinum and diamonds.
He said the projected growth takes cognisance of the constraints facing the sector, namely, depressed international mineral prices, falling demand in export markets, financing, as well as power shortages.
Gold output is expected to reach 18,7 tonnes from last year’s 15,3 tonnes.
