- Write by:
-
Tuesday, November 24, 2020 - 11:19:12 PM
-
743 Visit
-
Print
Mining News Pro - Instability in Zimbabwe caused by a spike in violence in the country’s gold mining sector over the last year, has eroded the export revenue that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government “urgently needs to keep the country’s struggling economy afloat,” independent nongovernmental organisation Crisis Group senior consultant for Southern Africa Piers Pigou laments.
In a statement on November 24, Pigou says this “bloodshed” – which has seen hundreds lose their lives – “is better seen as a symptom of Zimbabwe’s flawed centralised gold buying scheme, patronage-based economy and obsolete legal and regulatory system”.
A detailed comparison of three mining sites, based on new field research, reveals that political interests often drive violence, while gang violence flourishes around gold mining sites where the rule of law is weak, according to the statement.
“Reforms and development in the gold sector are crucial. Gold is Zimbabwe’s largest foreign exchange earner and Zimbabwe’s only major export commodity that has not dropped radically in price during the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic,” notes Crisis Group economics of conflict fellow Anouk Rigterink.
Therefore, Rigterink suggests that the priorities of Mnangagwa’s government should include giving artisanal mining cooperatives legal standing, paying gold producers benchmarked prices to reduce smuggling and strengthening mining dispute resolution.
Mining companies should also cooperate with artisanal miners, whose representative bodies should professionalise, he says, while multilateral organisations, such as the International Monetary Fund and neighbour South Africa should include metrics on mining when assessing Zimbabwe’s reform.
“The Mnangagwa government, mining companies, civil society and international actors can take steps to dial back this worrying uptick in violence. Absent such steps, cycles of violence will recur, hurting industrial miners’ profits and artisanal miners’ livelihoods, not to mention President Mnangagwa’s political standing,” Rigterink concludes.
Short Link:
https://www.miningnews.ir/En/News/608494
South African diversified miner Sibanye Stillwater is discussing with lenders to temporarily lift limits on borrowings, ...
Africa-focused Montage Gold announced Thursday it has received a ministerial order granting all environmental approvals ...
Newmont Corp. has no plans to expedite a decision on its $2.5 billion Yanacocha Sulfides project, dashing the Peruvian ...
China’s central bank added 60,000 troy ounces of gold to its reserves in April, official data showed on Tuesday, ...
Gold rose after mixed signals from the US, where optimism is growing the economy is on target for a soft landing as the ...
Executives from Saudi Arabian mining company Manara Minerals are in Islamabad to continue talks about buying a stake in ...
Harmony Gold said on Thursday an employee working on planned rail maintenance had died at its Mponeng mine in South ...
Emerging North American gold producer Contango ORE is boosting its landhold in Alaska with the acquisition of Canada’s ...
Gold fell, with market watchers saying the previous day’s rally in response to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s ...
No comments have been posted yet ...