Small-scale miners draw US$130m from GDIF

04 Aug, 2019 - 00:08 0 Views
Small-scale miners draw US$130m from GDIF Mr William Gambiza

The Sunday News

Chrispen Gumunyu, Business Reporter

GOLD small-scale miners have accessed US$130 million through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)’s Gold Development Initiative Fund (GDIF) since its inception three years ago.

In an interview with Sunday Business on the sidelines of the Matabeleland Gold Mining Conference in Gwanda on Thursday last week, GDIF mining investment fund advisor Mr William Gambiza said small-scale miners have accessed US$130 million from the US$200 million gold support scheme. The GDIF, which was launched by RBZ in 2016 and is administered by Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR) is aimed at capacitating small-scale miners to boost gold production.

“So far US$130 million has been utilised from the US$200 million meaning that we have US$70 million that has not yet been utilised. This is a revolving fund which seeks to ensure that every miner will benefit,” said Mr Gambiza.

At its inception, the facility was US$20 million but the Central Bank kept on increasing the fund due to its high uptake by the miners. The fund has played an integral role in ensuring increased gold deliveries to FPR by small-scale miners. That has seen small-scale miners break production records and delivering more gold than large-scale heavy weight mining power houses.

Mr Gambiza said FPR has identified 10 companies to supply mining equipment to beneficiaries of the 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.

“Suppliers of equipment have been identified and this is an on-going exercise. As a Government institution, we will always stand guided by Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ). So we require that every supplier be registered with PRAZ but for now we have about 10 suppliers,” he said.

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.

Speaking at the function RBZ principal inspector in the Exchange Control Inspectorate, Mr Paul Mapanzure said gold production for the first half this year has dropped compared to last year largely owing to the prevailing power outages in the country. 

“As at 31 June 2019 monthly gold production for both primary and small-scale miners was at 10 183 tonnes compared to 17 274 tonnes as at 31 June 2018, which is a decrease of about seven tonnes and the miners say this is due to power outages which reduce the time frame of production since milling centres will not be running,” said Mr Mapanzure.

@chrispen_gee

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