The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo/Judith Phiri, Business Reporters
FIDELITY Printers and Refiners (FPR) will soon sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a number of selected companies for the supply of mining equipment to beneficiaries of its Gold Development Initiative Fund (GDIF) as part of its efforts to continuously ramp up production of the yellow metal.
Addressing miners at the Bulawayo Gold Mining Conference on Thursday last week GDIF head Mr Matthew Chidavaenzi said as part of efforts to ensure transparency and delivery of appropriate mining machinery to beneficiaries of the loan facility, FRP was in the process of signing contracts with reputable mining machinery suppliers.
FPR’s decision to enter into agreements with selected suppliers comes after realisation and complaints from a number of small-scale miners that some of the companies, which it has been dealing with since the establishment of the fund, were delivering improper machinery.
“There is an MoU which is going to be signed between FPR and suppliers registered with GDIF and by the 21st of September (Friday) we will be knowing which suppliers have been selected,” said Mr Chidavaenzi.
He said negotiations are also underway with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to provide the shortlisted suppliers with adequate foreign currency to purchase the requisite machinery.
FPR general manager Mr Fradreck Kunaka guaranteed the miners that the company would ensure that appropriate machinery was delivered to the beneficiaries of the fund.
“We are working on engaging with reliable suppliers so that when miners qualify for the fund they can bring quotations of the machinery and equipment they want so that we then consider the right suppliers for them and transactions can be processed.
“We have realised that the equipment issue is more of an emotive subject to miners as some suppliers receive payment and don’t deliver on time, making up all sort of excuses and we have had some, which we had to recall the money from them due to failure to supply,” said Mr Kunaka.
In another related development aimed at ensuring increased gold production, FPR has pledged to sponsor small-scale miners to attend short courses in mining at the Zimbabwe School of Mines (ZSM) as part of its efforts to improve their knowledge in gold extraction.
“We discovered that there was a gap in terms of the knowledge and skills that people have after we had started bank rolling the miners fund to various beneficiaries. We were seeing deficiencies hence we sought ZSM as the best place to provide those skills.
