By Thomas Chidamba
GOVERNMENT will not back track on the Use it or Lose it principle for mining claims not utilised and are suspected to be held for speculative purposes.
Deputy Minister of Mines and Mining Development, Polite Kambamura said Government will recover all unutilised mining locations in a bid to open up ground to new investors.
He said that government has the right to reposess unused mining locations.
“As you may be aware, in Zimbabwe, mineral rights are vested in the state and are issued to title holders on a ‘lease basis’ with a purpose to work on the assets and ensure that the country benefits from mineral endowments.
“Consequently, implementation of the ‘Use it or Lose it’ principle, will ensure that government recovers unutilised mining locations, thus opening ground to serious investors who will not hold the mining titles for speculative purposes,but put it to productive use for the benefit of all Zimbabweans,” he said.
Deputy Minister Kambamura said that the implementation of ‘Use it or Lose it’ principle will contribute significantly to the attaininment of the targeted upper middle income economy by 2030.
“Enforcement of the ‘Use it or Lose it’ principe is expected to contribute significantly toward attaining milestones set out in the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP), which seeks to put the economy on a recovery path through enhanced mineral exploration, opening of new mines, re-opening of closed mines, increased capacity utilisation, mine expansion programmes, local beneficiation and value addition and inclusive growth of all sectors of the eonomy.
“The government of Zimbabwe is working on ensuring that the mining sector generates a revenue of $12 billion by 2023. This will be an immense contribution towards the country attaining the upper middle income economy status by 2030.
“Government is, therefore, putting strategies that leverage on a viable and sustainable mining sector in order to achieve these important milestones,” he said.
Some big mining companies stand accused of holding on to mining locations for speculative purposes.
