HARARE, Aug.18 (NewsDay Live)-State-owned Mutapa Gold Resources is moving to formalize artisanal gold mining on its Freda Rebecca mining lease by putting miners, shaft operators and other players across the production chain under contractual arrangements.
The company says it will allow existing artisanal operations to continue, but under a model that gives Mutapa greater oversight on production, safety, costs and the movement of gold while preserving its ownership of the mineral assets.
Tirivashe Vera, Mutapa Gold Resource’s general manager for contract mining, said the company had inherited an area in Bindura where illegal mining activities have taken place for about four years.
Mutapa is seeking to reorganise the operations rather than simply shutting them down.
“What you were doing or whoever was working in there, let them continue in a manner that is organised under a structure that we call mining contracts,” Vera told the artisanal miners at the site.
The shift to contracts marks a departure from traditional tribute arrangements, which Vera said can create administrative and supervisory challenges.
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Under the new system, Mutapa and contractors can negotiate operating terms and adjust them when circumstances change.
“Mining contracts bring flexibility to the contractor as well as the owners.”
The company intends to use the contracts not only for miners but across the wider value chain, including service providers and other businesses operating within the mining area.
Mutapa says it wants every participant to have a formal legal identity and pass a due-diligence process before entering into an agreement. Contractors will be given defined responsibilities and operating requirements.
“We obviously would want to have the legal person that we sign a contract with,” Vera said. “There is no contract without a head.”
The formalization drive comes with tighter control over access to mining areas. Mutapa says shaft operators will no longer be able to claim sites themselves or hold them purely for speculation.
Vera said project managers would oversee the large number of existing shafts and monitor their performance.
“We have issued contracts through the project manager that shaft owners have got contracts with the project manager,” he said. “And if you are not performing, you are going to be chucked out.”
There are more than 200 shafts in the area, making direct management by senior executives impossible, hence the decision to leave day-to-day supervision under project managers and Mutapa’s technical teams.
The company is also bringing experts such as geologists, metallurgists, mining engineers and surveyors into the operation.
Geologists will assess underground conditions and resource targets, while surveyors will monitor work sites, coordinates and volumes of material produced. Mining engineers will provide technical direction and assist with contractor management.
Mutapa also wants to use its technical expertise to help miners reduce operating costs.
“We also want to say, you are not doing it the most cost-effective way. This is how we can do it. It's more cost-effective,” Vera said.
The strategy could allow Mutapa to increase oversight of artisanal gold production without taking over every individual mining operation itself. The company says it will provide technical and project-management support, access to some equipment facilities, assistance with legal compliance and regulatory engagement, as well as security.
It also plans to control the movement of gold from the mining area.
“We will provide product chain of custody,” Vera said, adding that Mutapa would seek to protect gold coming from the area “to avoid leakages.”
The chain-of-custody system could give Mutapa greater visibility over production from contractors and help ensure gold follows an approved route after extraction.
Mutapa says it intends to retain its rights over the mining lease and preserve the option of developing larger commercial operations in the future. The company could eventually replace artisanal workings with open-pit or underground mining if exploration shows that the deposits can support industrial-scale production.
“If we find the resource amenable to our current operations, we put either an open pit underground that then supplies all to Freda Rebecca Mine,” Vera said.
That creates a balancing act for the State-owned miner: maximize current production from artisanal operations while ensuring those activities don't interfere with future exploration and large-scale mining.
Mutapa says some areas must first be properly assessed and sterilized before plants and other infrastructure are installed, because existing miners could be working over deposits that eventually prove commercially valuable.
“We might be sitting on our future mine and someone probably has a tech shop on top of it,” Vera said.
The company plans to continue exploration alongside the artisanal operations, potentially bringing in drill rigs and conducting aeromagnetic surveys to assess the resource.
Mutapa's longer-term vision is for some artisanal miners to potentially transition into deeper and more technically demanding operations. Vera pointed to Trojan Mine, where Mutapa mines at depths of about 1,000 metres underground, as an example of the scale that could eventually be possible.
The company is not simply closing down the artisanal miners it inherited. Instead, it is seeking to place them inside a contractual framework in which access to shafts, technical support and participation in the gold-production chain are tied to defined obligations.
The approach gives Mutapa a way to formalize production while retaining control over its mineral estate — and potentially transform today's artisanal workings into tomorrow's industrial mines.