Artisanal miners take casual approach towards COVID-19

THE Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) has decried failure to take the COVID-19 pandemic dangers seriously by some miners, mostly unregistered artisanal miners.

ZMF chief executive Wellington Takavarasha told Parliament last week that due to their nomadic nature, the unregistered artisanal miners were difficult to gather in order to disseminate information on COVID-19.

He said most of them were not adhering to safety requirements such as the need to put on personal protective clothing (PPE), including face masks.

Takavarasha told the Edmond Mkaratigwa-led Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines that artisanal small-scale miners (ASM) are classified from grade A to grade D; whereby those categorised under grades A and B were small-scale miners that were able to employ mine engineers and even a geologist and, therefore, were able to adhere to COVID-19 PPE and had provided those to their staff.

But Takavarasha told said that there was a problem with artisanal miners classified under grade D most of whom were unregistered and hopped from place to place in search of minerals and therefore were difficult to follow up in order to educate about issues of mining safety.

“Most miners were not aware of the lockdown announcements made by President Emmerson Mnangagwa; neither did they know that they were supposed to get exemption letters from the mining industry COVID-19 team that comprised of ZMF representing the artisanal miners, the Chamber of Mines representing the large-scale miners, and the Mines ministry,” Takavarasha said.

“Miners were also to comply with certain criteria as laid down by the COVID-19 ministerial committee, for example, layout of adherence to World Health Organisation COVID-19 personal protocol issues. Most ASM miners were ignorant about the lockdown and exemption requirements as evidenced by the number that had applied, where out of 30 000 registered miners, only 310 got the initial exemption letters, which is about 1%.

“Aggravated by the restricted movements, the miners found it difficult to get exemption letters by travelling to Harare. Meanwhile, in most areas it was business as usual until there was a visit on site by the gold mobilisation taskforce team or by the COVID-19 monitoring teams in Shamva, Kadoma, Shurugwi, Mberengwa and all artisanal mining sites, ”Takavarasha said.

He said while more than 90% artisanal miners had information about COVID-19, most did not take the issue of PPE seriously.

Coupled with this, the ZMF said Fidelity Printers and Refiners was struggling to pay miners, especially since trade with European countries has been disrupted by COVID-19 restrictions.

ZMF committee member Tichaona Mharadze said COVID-19 had taught miners that it was easier to monitor a formal business than an informal business.