BY KENNETH NYANGANI
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government is shooting itself in the foot after failing to offer reasonable prices to small-scale gold miners who have turned to the parallel market.
Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) treasurer-general Lufeyi Shato said this on Friday last week at a Green Governance-organised workshop in Penhalonga. Shato said the government, despite its target of producing 100 tonnes of gold by 2030, was fuelling the side- marketing of gold where the precious mineral fetches higher prices than what State-owned Fidelity Printers and Refiners offers.
“Let’s treat mining as real business. We can sustain our families through mining. Our President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said we should contribute 100 tonnes of gold by 2030, but I think the government is biting its own fingers on that,” he said “The reason I am saying the government is biting its own fingers is because small-scale miners are not given what they deserve by Fidelity Printers.
“Small-scale miners are now targeting the black market because the prices are good; we have since approached the government over the matter because we also want to meet the government’s target.”
Shato added: “We have tried engaging the responsible authorities in the past two years without success. We are promoting black market as a country and it is thriving and they are paying more.” he said
He said they will continue to lobby government to improve gold prices.
“It’s now expensive to produce gold, everything we are using is being charged in foreign currency, so we are going to continue to lobby the government so that we are given good money and help our economy to recover,” Shato said
