Government has gazetted regulations giving legal effect to Zimbabwe’s earlier declaration of a state of disaster over river ecosystems ravaged by alluvial mining.
The new regulations allow contractors to recover gold during rehabilitation without acquiring conventional mining licences.
The statutory instrument, issued under the Civil Protection Act [Chapter 10:06], operationalises the disaster declaration by setting out how rehabilitation contracts will be awarded, supervised and financed, while creating a special permit system for the recovery of minerals encountered during restoration works.
At the centre of the regulations is the introduction of gold recovery permits, which enable contractors undertaking rehabilitation to extract gold found in degraded river systems without obtaining full mining titles.
Permit holders will be required to pay State royalties, disclose all minerals recovered within seven days and submit monthly returns to provincial mining directors.
The regulations place overall responsibility for the programme in the hands of an inter-ministerial committee co-chaired by the ministers responsible for Environment and Agriculture.
The committee will approve contracts, monitor implementation and resolve disputes, while a working party led by the Deputy Chief Secretary will vet and shortlist prospective contractors.
The new framework also provides conditional immunity for companies that contributed to river degradation from 2012 onwards.
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Polluters that substantially fulfil their rehabilitation obligations will be protected from civil liability arising from the environmental damage.
Contractors not linked to the pollution and unable to recover commercially viable quantities of gold may claim up to 50% of their rehabilitation costs from the National Civil Protection Fund.
The regulations prescribe strict operational conditions.
Rehabilitation work is prohibited during the November-to-April rainy season and in rivers experiencing high flows.
Contractors must backfill pits, restore river channels, stabilise riverbanks and revegetate disturbed areas.
The Environmental Management Agency (EMA), the Zimbabwe National Water Authority and provincial mining directors must certify that rehabilitated sites no longer pose a mining threat before contractors can be cleared from their assignments.
The SI applies to rivers identified by EMA as having suffered extensive degradation from legal and illegal alluvial mining activities.
Harare, Bulawayo and Masvingo metropolitan provinces are excluded from its ambit.
While the disaster declaration itself was announced earlier, the gazetting of the regulations marks the point at which
Government’s river rehabilitation programme becomes operational, opening the way for the awarding of contracts under a State-supervised gold recovery model likely to attract scrutiny over transparency, accountability and the balance between environmental restoration and mineral extraction.
