THE Smallscale Miners’ Association of Zimbabwe has called on beneficiaries of Zanu PF’s infamous economic empowerment and indigenisation programme to surrender their underutilised gold claims and stop holding onto them for speculative purposes.
BY CLAYTON MASEKESA
This came out during a heated Manicaland Miners’ Association annual general meeting held in Mutare last Friday.
The miners also called on government to carry out an audit of beneficiaries of gold claims and flush out fortune hunters failing to fully utilise the resource.
“We are calling the government to implement the use-it-or-lose-it policy on all the idle gold mining claims. It is unfortunate that there are some beneficiaries who are not fully utilising these resources. These people should lose these gold mining claims,” Zimbabwe Miners’ Federation chairman Lufeyi Shato said.
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“We have others who acquired the mining rights, but are failing to utilise them, they should surrender them to those who can produce or engage willing partners. There should be a policy which states that claims have a 12-month tenure, after which they shall expire or be renewed. Failure to renew the titles will result in the forfeiture of the mining claims.”
The Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines said the mining sector has contributed more than 50% of the foreign direct investment of the $1,9 billion inflows Zimbabwe received since 2009.