ZERO TOLERANCE: Govt declares war on gold smugglers

04 Oct, 2015 - 01:10 0 Views
ZERO TOLERANCE: Govt declares war on gold smugglers

The Sunday News

gold bars

Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
THE Ministry of Mines and Mining Development is relooking at legislation that governs mineral trading and control in order to ensure that punitive measures are put in place to stop leakages especially in the gold sector, a Cabinet Minister has said.

In an interview on the sidelines of the Zimbabwe School of Mines’ 21st graduation ceremony on Friday, Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa said although figures were showing that gold smuggling in the country had significantly decreased since the establishment of a Gold Mobilisation Committee late last year, recent events have shown that some syndicates were back in full force hence the need to deal with the problem.

The Gold Mobilisation Committee is made up of the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Ministry of Home Affairs (through its minerals unit), Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and other regulatory departments.

Zimbabwe is estimated to be losing millions of dollars in gold leakages on a monthly basis as gold smugglers are taking the yellow mineral across borders in search of higher prices.

Figures from the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development reveal that the country has recovered gold and diamonds worth $2,4 million from unlicensed dealers in the 11 months to August this year.

Last month border control and minerals unit police officers arrested a man who was trying to smuggle 28,5 kilogrammes of gold with an estimated value of about $1 million into Botswana. This came after the confiscation of rough diamonds and gold worth more than R2 million (approximately $250 000) at Beitbridge Border Post.

“We are also looking at the legislative framework to see whether the punishment meted by the courts sufficiently deals with the problem so that we can tighten the laws that govern the abuse in the gold sector. It (gold) is one of our biggest minerals and certainly we cannot allow individuals to play around with what determines the livelihood of the people of Zimbabwe,” Minister Chidhakwa said.

He said the Gold Mobilisation Committee continues to explore several ways of curtailing the smuggling of the mineral across borders on the backdrop of recent frequency of arrest of smugglers at the country’s border posts.

“I want to assure the Zimbabwean public that we are doing everything possible to ensure that we account for our gold. To those that use improper channels or steal, I want them to know that sooner or later we will get to them,” Minister Chidhakwa said.

He, however, said there has been an increase in gold accountability with the country improving its collection by an additional two tonnes in the first half of the year compared to the same period last year.

Gold deliveries to Fidelity Printers and Refiners have risen from about 6,8 tonnes in the first half of the year last year to 8,8 tonnes during the same period this year.

Zimbabwe Miners Federation chief executive officer Mr Wellington Takavarasha said gold smuggling syndicates were rife due to failure by Government to expedite the formalisation of artisanal miners.

“It’s unfortunate that despite Government having introduced the gold co-ordinating unit there is rise in illicit gold trade. Most of this gold is bought from the informal sector, the unregistered artisanal miners. There are plenty of middlemen who are sponsoring gold extraction. It’s therefore necessary to decriminalise and formalise artisanal mining operations,” he said.

Artisanal mining has been growing on an international scale, with estimates indicating that 10 to 15 million workers are engaged in the sector globally and over 100 million people are indirectly dependent on it.

There is a marked correlation between this growth and the general economic situation in a country, when economic conditions deteriorate, artisanal mining increases.

Figures also suggest that the sector contributes 10 percent of all mineral production in over 50 developing countries worldwide.

The sector forms a significant part of the livelihoods of rural Zimbabweans, who depend on it to weather economic hardship. Due to its growing prominence, rights campaigners and policymakers are beginning to focus more on the difficulties facing artisanal miners. Major challenges include the conflict, human rights abuses, smuggling and environmental degradation associated with the sector.

Meanwhile, Minister Chidhakwa said platinum mining companies were making significant progress to ensure that the country derives more value from its mineral through constructing smelters for beneficiation purposes.

“The problems were with Mimosa and Unki and as you may now be aware Unki has taken a position that they want to build their own smelter but as they do that we are thinking of the next level, which is base metal refinery.

“At this stage we have been working on pushing the companies so that they start working on the construction of smelters so that we ensure that all our production is going through smelters,” Minister Chidhakwa said.

He said Zimplats was already working on setting up its base refinery and the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development was in the process of engaging the company to accommodate production coming from the other two platinum companies.

“We have also been in discussion with Zimplats, which is now working on its base metal refinery and hope that the capacity that will be created at Zimplats will be able to take production from the other platinum companies,” Minister Chidhakwa said.

Two months ago Government suspended a 15 percent tax on raw platinum exports after mining companies asked the Government to give them two years to set up smelters and refineries. The Government had introduced the levy on unrefined platinum in January to encourage local processing of the metal. Miners, however, said this would slash their margins at a time global prices were falling.

“You can’t have smelters, base metals and special metals refineries all built at one go. Firstly from a financial point of view there is nobody with that kind of financial capacity and secondly from a sequence point of view you have to sequence them in that manner,” he said.

Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe chief executive officer Mr Isaac Kwesu said the country stands to benefit immensely through beneficiation and value addition of its mineral but hinted that there was need for the platinum mining houses and Government to create a win-win situation as putting up of smelters and refineries requires substantial funding.

“As a Chamber we have always been supportive and committed to issues to do with mineral beneficiation and value addition and we should work towards that. I know things are difficult for our members to get adequate funds but they should come up with a win-win situation between themselves and Government but we are, however, happy that the Minister (Chidhakwa) says there is some progress taking place,” said Mr Kwesu.

Share This:

Survey


We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey

This will close in 20 seconds