The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
FIDELITY Printers and Refiners (FPR) will this month select companies to supply mining equipment to beneficiaries of its Gold Development Initiative Fund (GDIF) as part of its efforts to ensure small-scale miners are provided with the requisite machinery to continuously enhance production of the yellow metal.
FPR general manager Mr Fradreck Kunaka said the company was going to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with selected mining equipment suppliers as part of its efforts of ensuring that appropriate machinery was delivered to beneficiaries of its loan facility.
“We flighted an advert (in the Press) for potential mining equipment suppliers to submit their proposals, which was done in December and what we are going to do is to look at the proposals submitted by those potential equipment suppliers so that we evaluate them based on the criteria that we stated in that invitation for proposals to supply mining equipment. Before the end of this month we should have finalised the process,” said Mr Kunaka.
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.
“Some of the equipment that the miners were getting was not up to the required standards. So the MoU we are going to sign with these suppliers will guarantee that they get equipment with guarantees and warranties. If there are any challenges before the expiry of that warranty there won’t be any additional costs to the miner to make right what will have went wrong with the pieces of the equipment,” said Mr Kunaka.
He said the company would engage a reputable body to ascertain the standards and quality of the machinery from the suppliers.
“The quality of the equipment that is going to come will definitely be significantly improved because of the keen interest we will be showing in terms of where the equipment will be coming from and we are likely to include other bodies that will also assist us to be able to authenticate the quality of the equipment,” said Mr Kunaka.
Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) president Ms Henrietta Rushwaya said FPR should consider engaging the small-scale miners’ representative body in their mining equipment suppliers’ identification process to ensure that appropriate machinery is allocated to the recipients of its fund.
“We are saying why Fidelity doesn’t take us on board with regards to the identification of the suppliers of the equipment because some of the equipment they might recommend to our miners to use might be obsolete. Fidelity is actually creating more problems in an effort to address the existing problems,” she said.
Ms Rushwaya said FPR should stick to its role as the funder and leave small-scale miners with the responsibility of identifying suitable mining equipment suppliers. “Fidelity should engage us from the onset with regards to identifying the equipment that is necessary for the miner because the type of equipment varies depending on the grade or type of ore in a particular area. Fidelity can’t be the funder and identifier of the equipment needed by the miners. They are doing what is not expected of them to be doing at this stage,” she said.
GDIF is administered by FPR, which is the sole buyer, refiner and exporter of gold in the country.
The fund was created by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) as part of its initiatives to enhance economic productivity through promotion and development of the gold mining industry in Zimbabwe.
The loan facility is primarily for the acquisition of gold mining plant and equipment in order to enhance gold production by miners.
Since its launch in 2016, the loan facility has played an integral role in ensuring increased gold deliveries to FPR by small-scale miners.
This has seen small-scale miners break production records and delivering more gold than large-scale heavy weight mining power houses.
@DNsingo
