ZIM REPOSSESSES 80 MINING CONCESSIONS
HARARE– The Zimbabwean government has successfully repossessed over 80 mining concessions under the “use- it or lose-it” policy and a formal announcement will be made in due course, Mines and Mining Development Minister Winston Chitando, has revealed.
Last year, the Government announced that it was also looking forward to re-sizing some of the concessions with huge resource base and inordinate life spans and allocate them to potential investors.
In the past, it was noted that some prospective investors awarded the Spe
cial Grants (SG) in different mining sub-sectors of the economy were holding onto the claims for speculative purposes.
This was retrogressive as Zimbabwe was being deprived of its potential to exploit its vast mineral resource base.
Chitando said in a recent interview that the Government will soon issue a formal announcement regarding the repossessed idle assets.
“The ‘use-it or lose-it’ policy has been implemented. We will have formal announcements in due course. But we have repossessed over 80 assets and we will do a formal update on that, and we will continue to do that (repossessing),” he said.
The repossessed assets were in sub-sectors that include gold, coal, and chrome, among others. It is believed that the repossessed mining concessions will be allocated to other companies willing to immediately work on them.
“We have always warned that the time was up for all those mining title holders who were holding onto the concessions for speculative tendencies at the expense of the country.
Through the Mines and Minerals Act, the government is empowered to repossess unused mining concessions to prevent speculative holding of valuable assets.
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