Good times beckon for ZMDC
GOVERNMENT has put to tender invitations for expressions of interest in several mining companies under Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC), seeking investors to revive the mothballed or struggling subsidiaries, Mines and Mining Development Minister Winston Chitando has said.
This also comes as it emerged Government would move swiftly to reorganise the board of ZMDC to capacitate the State mining entity amid qualms about the capacity of the current leadership.
The board is currently chaired by former BNC chair, David Murangari.
In 2015, ZMDC said that it was looking for $50 million to recapitalise its gold mines. Only one, Jena, was fully functional then. The mining entity said then that potential investors from Europe, Asia and South Africa had expressed interest in its mines units.
The mining conglomerate has for almost two decades struggled to fulfil its mandate of investing in the mining industry in Zimbabwe on behalf of the State. Part of its role entails to plan, coordinate and implement mining development projects on behalf of Government.
Minister Chitando said that an ambitious turnaround strategy had been drafted to make sure that most of the closed or struggling entities under the ZMDC were brought back to life and that they realise their full potential.
Minister Chitando was speaking during a panel discussion at the Chamber of Mines Annual General Meeting in Victoria Falls last week held under the theme “Unlock Value, Maximise Benefits: Growth Perspectives for Zimbabwe’s Mineral Sector.”
“ZMDC has more than 20 entities, which are not performing. So far we have put six to tender and by end of May, an adjudication of the tenders will be completed.
“In a period of six months, we should have concrete plans and milestones for each of the assets to be operational,” Minister Chitando said.
Going forward, the minister said Government will carry on with the strategy where it will bundle the mining entities into groups of six and identify investors for each of the units until it finds investors for all 20.
Minister Chitando’s remarks follow a scathing attack on the company by Parliamentary Portfolio Committee chairperson Temba Mliswa, who branded the State owned firm’s board “useless” over its failure to generate value from its grounded, but good gold mines that include Jena, Elvington, Sabi and Golden Kopje.
ZMDC holds the proprietary rights for SMM Holdings, Copper Mines Mhangura, Alaska and Sanyati and Lynx Graphite Mine. It is also into limestone mining and processing, has coal and coalbed methane assets and is into tantalite mining and processing.
Minister Chitando said Government now had a working strategy to ensure that ZMDC exploited the potential of all assets within its extensive portfolio to contribute to growth of the mining sector and economy.
The mining entity has interests in gold, diamond, copper, tin, emerald and platinum among other minerals, but has struggled to tie down deals with investors to exploit them for the benefit of the economy.
On several occasions ZMDC has announced having identified investors for some of its subsidiaries, especially gold mining units, but the large majority of the announced deals never materialised.
ZMDC may also have suffered from the hostile environment that existed prior to the new dispensation, which made securing investors difficult given the state of the economy and some of the previous administration’s policies, especially the indegenisation law.