Mining suppliers who exhibited at the Minex Conference and Expo in Shamva held on the 25th of November 2021 have hailed the organisers of the exhibition for creating opportunities for the exhibitors to interact with a lot of miners, funders and policy makers.
Speaking to Great Dyke News 24, some of the suppliers said the event was an eye opener as they managed to interact and understand the challenges and needs of miners.
“We benefited a lot from this event. We had an opportunity to meet our prospects who are small scale miners based in Shamva.
“We managed to get their contacts and feedback. They also highlighted their needs, and on a greater note, it was an enlightening conference, and we got to learn about the requirements needed for small scale miners to be successful.
“We realised that they need our services very much for them to produce sufficient gold. We would like to thank Minex for giving us an opportunity to exhibit our products and to interact with miners and fellow suppliers as well,” said Prosper Muchakwa, Kubota Engineering Marketing and Sales Executive.
“The exhibition was fruitful. We managed to present our product list and we also managed to have some question and answer sessions with miners and we also managed to get their contacts which will be useful for our business.
“We are looking forward to getting some business from this event and we would like to thank Minex for organising such an event,” said Rufaro Mathambo Shepco Industrial Supplies Marketing Executive.
Some of the miners said they also benefited from the event as they got an opportunity to learn about issues of health and safety as well as sources of funding.
“The event was very important to us as we got an opportunity to learn a lot of things about mining which we didn’t know. Personally l didn’t know how to source for funding but from the Fidelity Printers presentation, l learnt a lot of things which will benefit me and my fellow miners who didn’t manage to attend the event,” said Chrispen Katsvairo a young miner from Shamva.
“2021 was a very good year for us as miners, despite covid-19, we learnt a lot of things from different training sessions we got from both the government and other organisations.
“l would like to thank the organisers of this event for giving all miners an opportunity to learn about a lot of things to do with health and safety.
“We are hoping that as we go into 2022, the information we learnt here will be useful to our fellow miners as we rally towards the $12 billion mining industry target by 2023,” said Chiedza Chipangura, ZMF Mashonaland West Province Chairperson.
“l learnt a lot of things from this event. l now know the importance of health and safety for miners. We are now looking forward to applying for funding from Fidelity Printers.
“We also got an opportunity to interact with our Provincial Mining Director and we expressed our grievances and he promised to address some of them. To be honest l benefitted a lot from this event,” said Tinashe Dzvairo a young miner from Shamva.
Minex was last held in Mashonaland Central in Bindura in 2017 and there have been growing calls by miners in the province for another exhibition.
Minex is a physical and virtual platform for shopping, sharing and learning about the mining sector. It is renowned for its discussion sessions and dialogue which provides answers and the missing link for small scale miners seeking a foothold to establish themselves and grow their businesses in the extractive sector.
Shamva was chosen to host the expo due to the high concentration of miners and its proximity to areas rich in gold such as Mazowe and Bindura.
The event was sponsored by Chloride Zimbabwe, Zimlabs, Performance Laboratories, Altran Security, Doves, Garmin, Kubota Engineering, Jacob BethelCorporation, Shamva Gold Mine and Shepco Industrial Supplies.
