President Emmerson Mnangagwa has urged authorities within the mining sector to plug gold leakages within the nation saying the country is only accounting for fifty percent of the precious mineral produced.
Speaking during the Chamber of Mines Annual Conference held in Victoria Falls last week, President Mnangagwa said the government is continuously improving the ease of doing business adding that this can only be improved if there is a continuous dialogue between the mining sector and the government.
“The long awaited introduction of the computerized mining cadastral system must be expedited. This will improve efficiency in mining administration and enhance mineral accountability.
“We understand that we account for only fifty percent of the gold that we produce and l don’t know where the other gold is going and l am very sure it goes away.
“You people in the sector should be able to advise us on how to deal with this issue. Going forward we should not cry about sanctions hence we must prosper under them,” he said.
According to the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA), corruption and gold smuggling among other issues have crippled the country’s efforts to leverage on its vast mineral resources and deliver basic services such as education, health and water.
” In September, 2020, Minister of Home Affairs, Honourable Kazembe Kazembe revealed that Zimbabwe was losing at least US$100 million worth of gold every month through international smuggling rings blaming it on “ porous borders”.
“The Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Professor Mthuli Ncube lamented that the country is losing significant revenue due to smuggling of gold to mostly the United Arab Emirates and South Africa.
“Gold is being used as a conduit for money laundering and Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) jeopardising the country’s domestic resource mobilization efforts to deliver quality basic services to the ordinary citizens,” said ZELA.
They added that the system of gold leakages in Zimbabwe is linked to criminality within the Artisanal and Small Scale Mining sector.
“Massive gold pilferage or leakage are facilitated by a well-connected system leveraging on the chaos in the sector and the influence of political actors involved.
“Lack of formalisation of artisanal mining actually mirrors a captured policy process in a way that allows a few to benefit and accumulate wealth from the sector taking advantage of the lack of formalization.
“In 2019 the President informed delegates attending an Anti-Corruption conference in Harare that Zimbabwe lost gold worth US$60 million through a syndicate of businessmen that clandestinely export precious minerals to Dubai.
“Again in 2019 the Minister of Finance and Economic Development Professor Mthuli Ncube indicated Zimbabwe lost 30-34 tonnes of gold due to smuggling to South Africa,” ZELA said.
Speaking during the same event, Minister of Mines and Mining Development Winston Chitando said the government seeks to intensify its monitoring and surveillance exercises to curb illicit trade of gold and ensure gold is delivered to Fidelity Printers and Refiners.
“Government thrust is to increase gold production from the current levels of about 20.87 tonnes in 2020 (inclusive of gold produced from PGMs processing) to about 100 tonnes by 2023, contributing USD4 billion to the $12billion milestone.
” In order to achieve this target Government, as highlighted in the NDS is mainly looking at enhanced exploration and development of medium to large scale mines as well as capacitation of small-scale miners.
“Furthermore, Government seeks to intensify its monitoring and surveillance exercises to curb illicit trade of gold and ensure gold is delivered to Fidelity Printers and Refiners,” he said.
