Home Mining Parliament advocates for pro -production policies in mining.

Parliament advocates for pro -production policies in mining.

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The Mines and Mining Development Portfolio Committee has called for policy implementation within the mining sector to ramp up production before the end of the year.

This comes after gold deliveries to Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR) in the period January to June 2019 stood at 12,3 tonnes, representing a 40.6% decline compared to 17.3 tonnes that were delivered during the same period last year.

In an interview with Great Dyke News 24, Mines and Mining Development Portfolio Committee Chairperson Edmond Mkaratigwa who is also a member of Parliament for Shurugwi South said there is need for temporary measures to be implemented so that the country can achieve its 40-tonne target by year-end.

“We need to intensify production, of course there is a drawback given the energy situation that we are experiencing as a nation.

“So we need temporary measures to enable ramping up of production before the end of the year.

“Besides energy, we need to look at the policy in view of the retention which is also a causing factor so we need to plug leakages,” he said.

Gold Miners Association of Zimbabwe (GMAZ) chief executive Irvine Chinyeze said the reduction in forex retention has caused a big slump in gold deliveries.

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“The fact that monetary authorities have reduced forex retention to 55 percent, gold miners don’t have an appetite to sell their gold to Fidelity Printers and Refiners as they are better offers somewhere. The trick is that they should have raised forex retention to above 80 percent to woo miners,” said Chinyenze.

According to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya, the decline is mainly due to exchange rates, pricing, and payment issues.

“Exchange rate, pricing and payment issues which partly accounted for the decline have, however, been largely resolved through the recent monetary policy means,” Mungudya said.

Zimbabwe is this year targeting a 28 percent increase in mineral export earnings as the mining sector gears towards the Vision 2030 target of an annual haul of US$12 billion per annum by 2023.

According to Mangudya, despite facing a plethora of challenges, small-scale miners contributed more than 60% of total deliveries.

“It is, however, pleasing to note that small-scale producers, despite facing a lot of challenges, continued to dominate the country’s gold deliveries, accounting for more than 60% of the total deliveries,” he added.

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