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Cletus Mushanawani Mash Central Bureau
GURUVE Rural District Council chief executive Mr Tinos Marisa, has called on Government to compel companies who are into base minerals mining to disclose their production figures to ensure transparency.

In an interview in Guruve on Tuesday, Mr Marisa said the country was losing a lot of revenue through lack of transparency in the mining sector.

“We have a challenge with the declaration of mining output by some of the companies operating here in our district. Our plea is for Government to enforce the declaration of output by miners into base minerals mining.

“It is not clear whether they correctly declare the actual output they ship out after mining. It seems what they declare to us is different from what they declare to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority and the Department of Customs and Immigration.

“Government should make sure that what is declared by the mining companies is the correct output so that all stakeholders adequately benefit from mining activities taking place in their communities.

“We have mining companies operating here whose operations are not that transparent and we urged Central Government to assist by closely scrutinising these companies’ records,” he said.

Mr Marisa said one of the major developments in the district was the recommissioning of Eureka Gold Mine and called on all stakeholders to support the project, which has immense benefits to the whole province.

“Eureka Gold Mine is poised to be one of the biggest gold mines in Zimbabwe and anyone who works to frustrate its operations will be doing more harm to the development of the economy,” he said.

On the issue of gold panning activities in the area, Mr Marisa, said as a local authority they were not benefiting much as the panners were not remitting anything.

“I think the best way forward is that all local authorities in whose areas there are panning activities, Fidelity Printers should pay royalties to them. Panners just come and go with local authorities not getting anything from them.

“Local authorities end up spending more money rehabilitating the damaged environment and here we have formed the Guruve Miners’ Association to try and address this issue. I am the secretary-general of the association, the idea being that we want the panners to realise that there is transparency in everything.

“We want to lure the artisanal miners to register so that all their operations are legalised. Mining should be done in an environmental friendly manner,” he said.

Mr Marisa also bemoaned punitive penalties that are being imposed on local authorities by ZIMRA for late remittance of taxes.

“We are being charged 100 percent for late remittances of taxes to ZIMRA.

“This means that most of the revenue that we collect is now being used to offset the ZIMRA penalties. Little is being left for development.

“Government should take a position to engage us and ZIMRA to chart the best way forward because if this continues no meaningful development will be realised in local authorities. It is more like the Central Government penalising itself through Zimra.

“Government needs to safeguard local authorities, the private sector and even individual enterprises,” he said.