Harare – The Government of Zimbabwe on Thursday urged Zimbabwe’s largets mining Group, company Metallon Corporation to manage its assets in a bid to expedite access to loan facilities to boost productivity, according to a report by the State broadcaster ZBC News.
As efforts to maximise mining industry productivity intensify, government has challenged Metallon Gold to apply various recapitalisation measures and manage their assets to expedite government efforts towards the mine’s access to loans for recapitalisation.
Addressing Shamva Mine management, Deputy Minister of Mines and Mining Development Polite Kambamura said the mining sector is on an expansion drive, hence government will look into the plight of Shamva Mine to ensure that requisite funds are availed to retain the productivity levels which are collapsing.
“Our main thrust in the transformation and stabilisation programme is to ensure that new mines are opened and existing one are expanded. We will talk to authorities to look at retention percentages….the issue of small scale miners being given 1.5 million, I think it should be the case with large scale operators given the status of our economy, but they need to be given loans not grants, recapacitate.”
Shamva Managing Director, Thomas Lusiyano is on record saying milled gold tonnage had drastically taken a nose dive due to the adverse economic environment, hence the need for quick financial injection to rescue operations.
“Our processing plant is producing 40 percent of our budget in terms of ounces of gold and that’s a sad state of affairs because it’s a fixed cost which is killing us.”
Shamva Gold Mine is producing 23kg of gold per month whereas its capacity is 85kg which can cascade to 120kg.
An injection of $5 million is needed to revamp the mine towards normal to above productivity levels.
The government is targeting production of 100 – 120 tonnes of gold per annum and increasing the revenue from $2.6 billion to $4 billion by 2023.
Metallon Corporation has applied for a loan facility of $18 million through RBZ for its four mines which include Shamva Gold Mine, Mazowe Gold Mine, How Mine and Redwing.
The miner which has a firm footprint in Zimbabwe through How Mine, Mazowe Mine, Shamva Mine and Redwing Mine last month placed Mazowe Mine under care and maintenance and consequently handed notices of employment termination to hundreds of its employees.
The firm’s troubles have gotten Government worried and authorities are keen to see the company that holds the largest chunk of the country’s gold resource not only returning to its previous production levels but operating at 100 percent.
The engagements are also important in light of Government’s quest to grow the country’s gold production from just over 24, 8 tonnes in 2017 to 100 tonnes annually.
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