Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
A COMPUTER-based and up-to-date land information system that will take stock of all mines and minerals in the country is set to be launched by January next year.
The database will contain a record of interests in land such as land owners’ rights, restrictions and responsibilities for use by mining entities.
Despite delays that have been faced, final touches are being put on the country’s Mining Cadastre System.
In 2022, the Government said it had sunk in excess of US$5,5 million in the development of the Cadastre System that went live in the first quarter of 2023, but was not yet fully operational.
Speaking in an inter-sectoral roundtable during the 27th edition of the Mining, Engineering and Transport Expo (Mine Entra) Conference 2024, which ended in Bulawayo on Friday, Ministry of Mines and Mining Development Permanent Secretary, Mr Pfungwa Kunaka said they were progressing well with the agenda to have the system fully operational.
“The system is there, you can demonstrate it but it is not yet complete. One final stage that we want to do is to put other titles like farms, we want to capture the information so that when you come to the Ministry pegging a claim you do not get it sitting on a farm.
“We want to ensure that we have synchronisation. We also need to put other infrastructure that include roads, schools and hospitals among others.
We have a system that we are developing, it’s not yet quite there but all the basic tenants of the system are now in place. What we are looking forward to, is come January 2025, we launch the system,” he said.
He said there have been a few hiccups that include a strenuous process of data collection to be inputted in the system.
The Permanent Secretary said they had to travel to all provinces to compile all the information and load it into the system.
He added: “The other issue has been of coming up with a maintenance agreement with the service provider. We got someone to develop the system, it took time for us to have an agreement. They will have to provide follow-up services and backup, that has been a problem.”
Mr Kunaka said they also wanted to fully verify data that they have captured on the system, which was not yet complete, while Manicaland was the pilot province to verify the data.
Responding to the question of the progress of the Mines and Mineral Bill, he said they were hoping to gazette it before the end of December.
“The Bill has been with us for the past two years. Everyone will know that at some point we were at a level where the President was supposed to assent to it that was two and half years ago. But for a good reason, President Mnangagwa said no, there are some problems in the Bill and pushed it back to us,” he said.
“What we did is, we tried to look at what the President had guided us on and we tried to address those issues. Key issues were on environmental protection, issues to do with farmer and miner relations as well as the issue of beneficiation.”
The Permanent Secretary said the Bill has been undergoing legal editing and the Attorney-General has been assisting them with that.
He said they had also realised that there were still some gaps that need to be addressed. “We are hoping that we will gazette the Bill before the end of December. But after gazetting, the Bill will still need to go through a consultative process, we come to stakeholders and ask for their views.
We apologise that it has taken long to come to fruition. In 2025, it should be our goal and demand that the Bill is assented to, we are hoping to achieve that.”
On the Minerals Development Policy, Mr Kunaka said they were also hoping that it will be finalised in the first quarter of 2025.
“The policy has also been on the table for quite some time, we have managed to gather the inputs that we needed for it and everything is now in place,” he said.
He said stakeholder consultations were done and they need to table it before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Mining Development and then make a submission to Cabinet.