The Sunday Mail
Small scale gold miners will start accessing the US$100 million loan facility from the Chinese Development Bank soon as authorities are now finalising modalities for the disbursement of the huge grant.
The target for gold production in 2015 has been pegged at 20 tonnes with the grant from the Chinese expected to go a long way in boosting production among artisanal miners.
Recently, Government agreed to provide the guarantee for the Chinese loan, a major development that paves way for the release of the funds.
The Sunday Mail understands that the Government signed the guarantee for the loan a few weeks ago.
Mines and Mining Development Deputy Minister Fred Moyo said the funds should start rolling in within the first quarter of the year.
“To be on the safe side, I can say the funds will be made available by the first quarter of the year. Government has made the guarantee and I think the Chinese are now looking at the final stages of the deal,” he said.
President of the Zimbabwe Artisanal and Small Scale Miners Council (Zassmc) Mr Wellington Takavarasha said his organisation has started creating the framework for members to access the funds.
“Zassmc is working on the criteria of how members can access the loan and we have set up a team of experts to look at this.
“The experts are guided by the position that those miners who have been supplying gold to Fidelity Printers should get first preference.
“We want miners to get equipment as well as the consumables such as diesel so that work will commence immediately and there will be no hindrance to production,” he said.
Government has identified gold as a strategic component of the country’s economic revival as the country is heavily endowed with the yellow metal.
Some of the measures adopted by Government to accelerate gold production include the planned return to the London Bullion Market, setting up of gold service centres as well as establishment of a Gold Compliance and Enforcement Unit, which is a joint task force comprising several Government departments and stakeholders in the mining industry.
In the 1990s, gold occupied a strategic role in Zimbabwe’s economy as a reserve asset, with production reaching a peak of 27 tonnes in 1999.
