Zimbabwe will leverage on its natural resources and will
not be deterred by the economic embargoes imposed by Western nations, President Mnangagwa has
said.
The Head of State and Government was speaking after
witnessing the signing ceremony of an investment agreement on Southern Serui
Platinum Concessions between Government and the Bravura Consortium for
aero-magnetic exploration of the 3 000ha Muflox claims.
The claims are situated north of Selous along the Great
Dyke in Mashonaland West. The ceremony was held at Robert Gabriel Mugabe
International Airport in Harare yesterday where President Mnangagwa also
commissioned two aero-magnetic planes to be used for the exploration.
The Bravura Consortium is a multi-national mining house
registered in the Republic of Dominica and is domiciled in Ghana with
subsidiaries in Nigeria, DRC, Guinea and Zimbabwe.
President Mnangagwa said the country has been under sanctions
for a long time resulting in the collapse of the economy.
This, he said, left the country’s development stagnated. “While indeed we still say to those who imposed sanctions
on us, remove them because there is no justification for the embargo, we should
not bury our heads in sand because of those sanctions,” he said.
“We should realise that we have resources in our country.
We must therefore focus on harnessing those resources to develop, modernise and
industrialise our country and our economy.
“We should not have
sanctions impugn our capacity and capability to use our resources to the
benefit of our people. We should rise using the resources at our disposal and
move forward.”
President Mnangagwa who was coming from Victoria Falls
where he opened the Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines conference, said Bravura
investment in the country was another milestone in the mining sector.
This comes after another platinum mining giant, Karo
Resources launched its investment proposals on a concession in the same
province.
“We have just come from Vic Falls this afternoon where I
had been invited by the Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines,” he said. “They are holding
their mining conference in the resort town, where our people and other
investors in this sector are assembled to exchange views, technology and vision
on how to grow and maximise the exploitation of our mining sector. Here are our
people coming together saying how do we grow the mining sector?”
The President said
the miners have a target, which they have set for themselves for the sector to
grow to a minimum of US$12 billion by the year 2023. He said they have also
come up with a road map to achieve their goals in terms of modernisation and
expansion of the entities they are exploiting now.
“They bring on board new technology, new skills to achieve
the goals they have set themselves,” he said. The President said he admired
citizens who occupy themselves with the task to grow the country’s economy and
better people’s lives, not those who are pre-occupied with the mission to
destroy the country.
“We assembled here today in pursuit of another challenge to
contribute to the growth of our economy in the mining sector,” said President
Mnangagwa adding that he was most pleased to have established platinum mining
entities in the country, such as Mimosa, Todal, Unki and Zimplats.
The President said
while all these mining entities were foreign owned, Bravura was an investor
from the continent. “An African company investing in an African country. This
is great. This what we want to see. This speaks to the integration of the regions of our
economies as a continent. We congratulate you Bravura,” he said.
He said Bravura was
not investing its global capital in Zimbabwe not only to make money, but also
for creating jobs for the local people. Phase one of the project will see an
excess of 2 000 people being employed directly by the mining company.
“As it expands I also see expansion of employment by this
project as a result of beneficiation and value addition. In your speech you
said you are not blind to the need to beneficiate. Again I congratulate you for
your vision, this is our vision too,” he said.
President Mnangagwa
also said to grow the economy there are some sub-sectors of the national
economy which are considered low hanging fruits and these include agriculture,
mining, tourism and ICT sectors. Chronicle
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