Miners call for relaxed funding conditions

STAKEHOLDERS in the mining industry have called on the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to relax requirements for accessing funding by miners under the gold support scheme.

The central bank this year increased the gold support facility to $150 million from $74 million that was disbursed last year.

A mining equipment distributor, Midlands Metals, said Government should accept small-scale miners’ registered claims as collateral.

The company’s operations director Mr Tatenda Karimazondo said accepting claims as collateral would result in increased uptake of loans and this will in turn boost gold output.

“What is needed is to ensure that the claims used as collateral are registered with the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development,” he said.

Mr Karimazondo said scale miners should be encouraged to buy their equipment from local manufacturers as part of measures to revive local industries.

Small-scale and artisanal miners through their lobby group, the Zimbabwe Miners’ Federation (ZMF) have started to engage Government on the issue of collateral.

ZMF national chairman, Mr Lufeyo Shato said most small-scale miners were failing to access the loan facility due to stringent collateral conditions and this was hindering production.

“Many small-scale miners cannot access the gold support funds because they do not have the required collateral,” he said.

Mr Shato said another way to overcome the issue of collateral was for the money to be disbursed through associations so that the associations ensure that beneficiaries sell their gold through official channels.

Last year, small-scale miners contributed 53 percent of the 24.8 tonnes of gold delivered to Fidelity Printers and Refiners, the Central Bank’s gold-buying unit. — @ lavuzigara1.