Business Reporter

Government has launched the second gold monitoring and surveillance exercise for the year as it seeks an increase of deliveries to Fidelity Printers and Refineries. Mines and mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa said the Gold Mobilisation Technical Committee (GMTC) that conducts the exercise was already in the field.“As we speak, the second monitoring and surveillance exercise for 2016 is underway as teams are in the field carrying out a blitz to ensure that miners remit gold to Fidelity Printers and Refineries,” he said in a speech that was read on his behalf last week at the Chamber of Mines AGM and conference in Victoria Falls.

The GMTC, which comprises of Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, (RBZ), ZRP Minerals and Border Control and FPR, was mooted last year by the Ministry to find ways of increasing gold deliveries to Fidelity Refineries and Printers (FPR).

One of the ways identified was to enforce compliance to regulations particularly by the small scale miners.

Minister Chidhakwa said the Technical Team, which conducts quarterly monitoring and surveillance exercises, had already achieved notable results due to an increase in the gold delivered to FPR.

“In the first quarter of 2016, gold deliveries stood at 4,6 tonnes which is an increase of 1,2 tonnes compared to the same period in 2015. Small-scale miners recorded a higher increase of 54 percent for 1,9 tonnes they have delivered,” he said.

He added that total gold production in 2015 stood at 18,628 tonnes translating to an increase of 34 percent from 2014 deliveries of 13,9 tonnes.

“The small-scale sector delivered 7,532 tonnes of gold in 2015 compared to only 1,7 tonnes and 3,937 tonnes in 2013 and 2014 respectively,” he said.

In an effort to control gold leakages, Minister Chidhakwa said Government had adopted measures like the establishment of Provincial Advisory Boards, capacitation of artisanal miners, technical capacity building, establishment of gold service centres, establishment of mobile gold buying units amongst others have been put in place to increase gold production.

“An Inter-Ministerial taskforce was put in place to enhance monitoring at the country’s borders and work is underway.

“It is our hope that by 2018 we reach an annual production of 30 tonnes if we are to go ahead in the same spirit as seen in the first quarter of the year,” he said.

Meanwhile the Minister called for order in the lending of support to the SME mining sector.

“Policies have been formulated to embrace and capacitate artisanal and small scale miners. Government recognises the efforts done by big mines in tributing some of their claims to small scale miners and establishment of service centres as an empowerment tool.

“However we urge that support to small scale miners be done in a systematic coordinated manner for transparency purposes,” he said.

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