Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe says that the review of the country’s Mines and Minerals Act is progressing satisfactorily.
Vociferous calls were made at last year’s Zimbabwe Mining Indaba for government to finalise the review.
Addressing the Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines, annual general meeting, in Victoria Falls, late last month, Mugabe highlighted a number of aspects that were being focused on.
“The Act should lucidly spell out the strategy for local beneficiation. Value addition within the borders of Zimbabwe should be viewed within the context of an overall integrated national industrialisation strategy, and not in isolation.”
Another key issue would be skills development. Mugabe pquartz boulders crusherointed out that, in the 1980s and 1990s, Zimbabwe developed a formidable skills base across all sectors of the economy, which was used as a visible testimony to social transformation across Africa. Most of these skills had been lost owing to a brain drain triggered by the country’s economic challenges.
“There is a need to attract these skills back into the country and the mining industry could be at the forefront of such an initiativore crushing machine speed control pricee, given the skills intensity of the industry,” said Mugabe.
He added that there was also a need to strengthen the country’s capacity for research and policy analysis to help mitigate against the loss of skills that the country had suffered.
Mugabe affirmed government’s view that the mining industry would play a central role in turning Zimbabwe’s economy around. He added that, currently, the migyratory versus cone crusherning sector accounted for more than 50% of the country’s export earnings and provided over 45 000 jobs.
Mugabe hinted that his government was in the process of adopting plans for the implementation of a ‘use it or lose it’ policy which would force prospectors to develop reported mineral resources or cede them to the State.
“This policy seeks to discourage the speculative holding of mineral rights by nonusers. Thus, genuine investors with current and ongoing development plans have no cause for concern. Provided that the resource estimates are legiti- mate and significant, the implementation of the policy will take into account the long-term nature of investment in mining and the natural mining expansion planning cycle,” said Mugabe.
He noted that a major deterrent to investors interested in expanding into Zimbabwe was the poor infrastructure that serviced the mining industry.
“As is well documented, the economy of Zimbabwe has gone through very difficult circumstances over the past decade. Government is aware of the current challenges constraining the growth of the mining sector, thus slowing down the recovery momentum. In response, government has instituted a programme of econo- mic stabilisation measures under the Short-Term Economic Recovery Programme (Sterp). This has now been completed and, after having achieved the desired level of economic stabilisation, government will now roll out further economic reforms for the sustainable recovery and growth of the economy,” said Mugabe.
Currently available electricity generation capacity in Zimbabwe is only 1 000 MW, compared with an installed capacity of 1 890 MW. The available capacity is still significantly less than peak demand, which currently stands at 1 600 MW.
However, Mugabe said this challenge would soon be resolved.
“Several power projects requiring new investors are pending. This will include Hwange power stations 7 and 8, as well as new power stations at Kariba and Batoka. In addition, government will institute the necessary energy-sector reforms required for attracting new investment in that sector.”