HARARE: Paul Mangwana, a former Cabinet Minister and board member at the Zimbabwe Artisanal and Small-scale Miners Council (ZASMC), told The Zimbabwean this week that his association had lobbied government to stop smuggling, but conceded that the leakage of the mineral continued.
“Government has taken some measures and this is hopefully helping reduce smuggling, but there is still a problem with miners taking gold out of the country illegally,” said Mangwana.
The measures include a reduction in royalties payable to Fidelity Printers, the national processor of gold, from seven to three percent. “A reduction of four percent will obviously have some impact because it means miners will realise more from their bullion sales. This is to encourage them to sell locally rather than look for outside markets through illegal means. It has made prices a bit competitive,” he explained.
Government has also sourced a $100 million facility from which small-scale miners can buy equipment such as compressors. They pay between $80- 100 a day to hire a compressor.
“Once miners own the equipment, it means production costs will go down and this will in turn encourage them to sell to Fidelity,” said Mangwana, adding that the mines ministry had reduced the fees payable by miners and introduced a system whereby miners could not process gold in the absence of police and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) officials.
However, there is reported connivance between the monitoring officials and the miners, resulting in persistent leakages.
Small scale and artisanal miners contribute significantly to annual gold production, accounting for 3.6 million tonnes out of the total output of around 13 million tonnes last year. They are reported to be the major smugglers of gold to countries like South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and beyond.
Documents leaked to The Zimbabwean last year indicated that the country was losing about $800 million worth of gold through smuggling every month.
Private investigators wrote to former Vice President, Joice Mujuru, finance minister, Patrick Chinamasa, several ministries and the IMF as well as World Bank regarding the issue.
The gold is understood to be smuggled out through official land and air exit points with the connivance of influential politicians, some of who own the mines and control illegal mining syndicates.
According to the leaked documents, several unnamed cabinet ministers and senior government officials are involved in shady deals with small miners. Zimbabwe is believed to be home to more than 1,000 registered artisanal gold miners who employ an estimated 500,000 people.
