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Joseph Madzimure
Senior Reporter
Empowerment lobby, Miners for Economic Development, has embarked on a countrywide exercise to mobilise small-scale miners to register to vote in the upcoming harmonised elections.

A number of small-scale miners do not have national identity cards and Miners for ED has pledged to provide transport to ensure they are issued with IDs and register as voters.

The lobby group has so far visited 12 mining areas and registered 13 250 small scale miners.

Speaking – after meeting small-scale miners and mine owners at Benson Mine in Mutuko, Miners for ED spokesperson Mr Edmund Kucherera said their aim was to identify small-scale miners who did not have national identification particulars and were not registered voters.

Miners for ED, he said, would ensure that all miners were registered voters through site visits and site registration and would work in conjunction with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to help them register as voters as they get their national ID cards.

“It is important to note that we have many small-scale miners that are scattered all over the country,” said Mr Kucherera.

“These miners contribute almost a fifth of the electorate, but unfortunately this demography barely participates in the elections processes with that being said we saw the need to spearhead an intensive campaign to ensure they are registered voters.”

Mr Kucherera said they wanted to play an integral part in the economic transformation in line with vision 2030.

“Zimbabwe is richly-endowed with human and natural resources which present vast opportunities for everyone,” he said.

“We stand apart as a unique nation, driven by values of mutual tolerance, peace and unity which we have displayed, notwithstanding our diverse demographic, cultural and political persuasions.”

Some of their objectives, he said, were to develop capacity building tools and programmes that attracted, retained, and promoted the advancement of miners in the extractive industries.

“We want to promote access to finance and establish collaborations with financial institutions to enable miners in mining to access the necessary finance and credit for their mining operations,” he said.

“We will also conduct a comprehensive needs assessment on the challenges affecting women and youths in mining, the disabled in mining, and implement programmes to address these challenges.”

The organisation would also collaborate with relevant and interested organisations to train women, youths and the disabled who are involved in the informal mining sector in appropriate mining methods.

They would also look at mitigating environmental degradation and push for the establishment of gold buying centres across the country to avoid gold leaks.