SMALL-SCALE miners in Manicaland province are up in arms
against the Mines ministry over double allocation of gold claims which, they
say, has led to disputes among miners.
This was revealed on Friday at a Green Governance-organised
workshop with small-scale gold miners in Penhalonga where it also emerged that
government officials were pushing hapless miners off their gold claims.
Addressing the gathering, Manicaland Miners’ Association
chairperson Lovemore Kasha said corruption had reached alarming levels in the
Mines ministry.
“We are worried about corruption in the Ministry of Mines.
These days it is now worse maybe it is because of the struggling economy. We,
of late, witnessed double allocations of gold claims,” he said.
“If you ask why they are doing that, they will say we have
given it to brigadier so and so or a senior government official and you are
forced into silence.”
Penhalonga Miners’ Association chairperson Tendai Mandonga
also castigated the ministry for laxity as they were not educating small-scale
miners on safety precautions.
“We are worried about the Ministry of Mines because they
are not coming to carry out their duties because, as small-scale miners, we are
supposed to be educated on security safety measures because we don’t want to
see the loss of lives,” he said
“Yes, we need money, but we don’t want to see the loss of
lives in the mining sector. Our Ministry of Mines officials in the province are
not teaching us on safety precautions.”
Mandonga added: “There are many boundary disputes in the
province. What happens if ministry officials fails to deal with these matters,
then people will start to fight, leading to fatalities.”
Green Governance official Trevor James pledged to engage
the Mines ministry over the allegations.
“We have noted all your points so our next step is that we
are going to engage the ministry over the matter so that we can arrange a
meeting with them,” he said. Manicaland provincial mining director Omen Dube
mobile’s phone went unanswered when contacted for comment yesterday. Newsday
0 comments:
Post a Comment