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Herald Reporter
Government will soon correct the current state of affairs where most mining claims in the country are being held for speculative purposes, the Deputy Minister of Mines and Mining Development Fred Moyo has said. Only a tenth of the 10 000 issued mining claims are being utilised. Deputy Minister Moyo was speaking in the National Assembly last week while responding to a question by Silobela representative Cde Manoki Mpofu on Government policy regarding idle mining claims.

“The country has up to 10 000 mining claims held by various owners and those in use are less than 1 000. We are carrying out an exercise province by province to establish how many claims are being used and seek explanations from those that are not and see whether or not we can distribute them to others through enforcement of the use or lose it principle,” he said

Deputy Minister Moyo said they intended to engage stakeholders, especially large scale companies to encourage them to release some of their claims to small-scale miners. He said most operations by small-scale miners were done on the surface and would not prejudice the value of the claims as the big miners tend to mine deeper.