Set up gold sales points - Simukonda
GOVERNMENT must establish ZCCM-IH centres in all areas where gold panning will be conducted to ease the transaction process with the local miners, a mining expert has said.
Mr Edward Simukonda said small scale miners should not have challenges to sell their gold due to long distances.
He said in an interview yesterday that opening open centres in all areas would be a relief to the local miners because they may have challenges with resource to transport the mineral to the point of sale.
Mr Simukonda who is also former ZCCM-IH and Konkola Copper Mine (KCM) employee said what was needed was to help the locals have easy access to the market.
Recently, Minister of Mines and Mineral Development Richard Musukwa said ZCCM-IH would establish centres in the areas where there would be gold panning activities.
He said this move was to make it easier for those involved in gold panning to have a ready market for their gold within reach of their mining activities.
But Mr Simukonda said that the centres should not be restricted to certain areas as it would be difficult for other local miners from different places to transport to the market.
He said it was important for the government to ensure each gold panning area had its own centre.
And Mr Simukonda hailed Government for its move to empower local miners with equipment.
He said this was the only way local miners would be able to accelerate their operations.