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Business Reporter
The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development has assigned the Zimbabwe Economic Policy Analysis and Research Unit (Zeparu) to audit skills gap in the mining sector to enable interventions that enhance its contribution to economic growth. A survey will be carried out to identify skills and knowledge gaps that can be closed through training and evaluate capacity challenges and skills levels of critical support institutions.

The outcome of the survey into the sector, projected in the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset) to account for 12,8 percent of GDP by 2018, will suggest strategies to redress the identified skills, knowledge and capacity needs.

“The main objective of the study is to provide advice on skills gap, which if addressed can enhance the country’s economic growth,” Zeparu said in a brief of the planned survey.

This comes as Government is currently in the process of strengthening mining sector policy and governance framework to enhance the country’s economic growth and sustainability,

Government, through the responsible ministry realised that this will succeed if all institutions and stakeholders across the sector value chain have the necessary skills and knowledge.

As such, the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development entrusted Zeparu with the task of carrying out the assessment.

The research unit has since set up a six-member research team and the study scheduled to be conducted over a period of two months will commence with a workshop.

According to Zeparu’s preliminary hypothesis, training needs largely exists in the post-mining arena, which is beneficiation and value addition of the mineral value chain.

Zimbabwe has a huge extractive/mining industry and a total of 132 minerals are known to occur and about 68 different minerals are known to have been mined at some point.

Approximately 40 minerals are being mined and are a major foreign currency earner (60 percent), with potential to become the pillar for economic growth through value addition and beneficiation.

This dovetails into the Africa Mining Vision, which calls for value addition, beneficiation and optimal exploitation of the continent’s finite natural resources for the benefit of all its people.

Zeparu said mining accounted for 6,5 percent of the country’s GDP in 2913 and is seen contributing 12,8 percent of the country’s total annual production value by 2018. However, the miners contend that the sector contributes about 16,5 percent to GDP.

Government views the mining sector as a key sector of the economy and expects improved revenue collection from the industry, its designated anchor for economic growth.

This also comes against the background that the implementation of its medium-term economic blueprint, Zim-Asset, largely depends on judicious exploitation of mineral resources.

As such, there is urgent need for Zimbabwe, through the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, to use its mineral resources to underpin growth and development.