The Sunday News
Tinomuda Chakanyuka, Senior Reporter
ZIMBABWE is among the top 10 countries in the world that are still using mercury to process gold, despite the substance’s apparent dangers to the environment and threats to human life, an official has said.
The country is yet to ratify the Minamata Convention of 2013 which places a ban on the use of mercury and mercury products.
Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) chief executive officer Mr Wellington Takavarasha told journalists in Harare last week that the country imports over 350 tonnes of mercury annually.
He was speaking during a media workshop on investigating the extractive industry organised by the Centre of Investigative Journalism in Zimbabwe (CIJZ) and the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association, which ended in Harare on Friday last week. Mr Takavarasha said of the total tonnage of mercury brought into the country, only 50 tonnes were imported legally.
“Out of the 130 countries that signed the convention in Japan 2013 only eight have ratified and have stopped using mercury.
Zimbabwe is among the top 10 countries that abuse mercury in the world. 50 tonnes are imported legally. 300 tonnes come into the country illegally,” he said.
Mr Takavarasha said although the country was working on ratifying the convention and ban the use of mercury, the challenge was to find an environmentally friendly alternative way to process gold. He said other countries that were able to ban mercury were able to do so as their gold output and number of small-scale miners was low compared to Zimbabwe.
Mr Takavarasha added that lack of knowledge among small-scale miners on the dangers posed by mercury was one of the reasons banning the substance would be difficult in Zimbabwe especially when no alternative was provided.
“The main challenge is that we have to find an alternative. That challenge has to be looked at from a metallurgical point of view. Panners don’t know that mercury is dangerous, all they want is gold. So to ban mercury when there is no alternative may prove a big task,” he said.
Added Mr Takavarasha, “We have close to five million small-scale miners in Zimbabwe, whereas countries such as Mozambique that have successfully banned the chemical have smaller populations of miners to deal with. Zimbabwe is working on it (banning mercury) but it will be a process. We are running with the speed of wind to get there,” he said.
Mr Takavarasha said another reason that made banning of mercury in Zimbabwe difficult, was that available mercury-free equipment for gold processing is expensive. He said the country would however, study Indonesia, one of the countries with a huge population of small-scale miners that successfully banned mercury.
“Indonesia was the last to ratify the convention and they have a similar scenario with Zimbabwe. This is where we need to draw lessons from. We need to study what they have done and see how that can help us.”
Mr Takavarasha added that the ban on mercury by the Minamata Convention has seen the cost of the substance going up as countries that used to produce the chemical have stopped. He said 1kg of mercury which used to sell for $50 before the ban is now being sold for $380, impacting on the miners’ cost of production.
