Getting a mine in Zimbabwe: How to get started

Picture of miners doing mercury amalgamation (left), treating the gold mercury amalgam with acid(right).

To get into gold mining in Zimbabwe there are a couple of ways to do that. You can either be a prospector and get your own claim, join hands with others and form syndicates or become an investor in someone else’s mine. These days we are seeing the rise of “sponsors”. Sponsors are individuals who got financial muscles who provide capital and equipment to owners of mining claims in return for a percentage of the dividends of the mining venture.

According from the ministry of Mines page, one has to be a holder of a prospecting licence first and appoint an agent or an approved prospector(pegger) to peg on his/her behalf. Full details are on the ministry page found at http://www.mines.gov.zw/?q=mining_procedures. Below is a summary of one needs to do to get a mining claim, e.g a gold claim.

One has to identify a site of interest first and apply for a prospecting licence form the Ministry of Mines. The identified site of interest must not be already pegged. If the area of interest is in an farm which is 100ha or less, one has to seek consent of landowner before pegging.If the land is more than 100 hectares then the Pegger ( who is an approved prospector) will notify the land owner about his/her intentions to prospect and peg a mine within that land. You only need to notify the land owner and his or her consent is not mandatory.

The pegger will complete the required paperwork and submit it to the Ministry of mines.The pegger is required to physically peg the area by marking the deposit with a Discovery Peg. He/She should also post Prospecting, Discovery and Registration Notices on the ground. The notices must be posted in a conspicuous manner to alert other prospectors.

An application for registration must be submitted to the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development offices. The application must have copies of the following attachments:

(a) Prospecting license(s);

(b) Prospecting Notice;

(c ) Discovery Notice (Base Minerals);

(d) Notification of intention to prospect to the landowner;

(e) A map in triplicate to the scale of 1:25000.

The papers must be submitted as soon as possible because other people might come in and peg in your area and claim that they did not see your papers on intention or they might be removed by unscrupulous people who pass by the area.

If the Provincial Mining Director is satisfied that all pegging procedures have been followed he shall issue a certificate of registration upon payment of the gazette fee. This allows the holder to start mining operations subject to meeting other obligations like Environment Impact Assessment (EIA).

Within three months from the date of registration the miner is required to erect permanent beacons on the ground and their GPS coordinates should be recorded.

The Ministry of Mines charges quite a number of fees from the beginning of prospecting to one getting a certificate of registration and also when mining. Below is a list of fees charged for different stages:

An ordinary Prospecting licence costs $200 and is valid for 2 years and this allows the bearer to prospect in an approved area in the province of the issuing office. A special prospecting licence costs $600 and these allows the holder to prospect in approved areas anywhere in Zimbabwe.

Registration fees depend on type of mineral being mined. For precious metals the fees costs $200 and its valid for 2 years. There after renewal costs $100 and valid for a year. Other fees are as follows ,base Minerals costs $300, special grant is $1000 and special block is $600.

After one has been issued with the registration certificate, one has to complete the process of Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) before mining. This process is done by approved agents who get accreditation from the Environmental Management Agency(EMA). List of accredited agents is available from all local EMA offices or at this link https://www.ema.co.zw/index.php/2014-06-12-03-51-59/eia-consultants-register.html Agents charge from a minimum of $1000 upwards depending on the scale of your project. Its up to the miner to chose his/her agent of choice.

To begin the process, one pays $126 to EMA to submit their prospectus of their project. Prospectus contains information on the project such as the nature of project, location, size, area sensitivity and project implementation strategy among other issues. This prospectus can be compiled by the mine owner or the chosen agent. In addition the miner owner has to come up with a site of works plan which has to be approved by the Ministry of mines. Submission to the ministry attracts a fee of $200. Site of works plan drawing costs from $200 to $500 depending on the person drawing it. When the process is complete one is issued with an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) certificate which is valid for 2 years and renewal costs $100 valid for year. EMA also charges a percentage of 0.8% of the total costs of the planned project for a typical small scale gold mine.

From the above it clearly shows the funds required to start mining are quite huge. If we factor in the capital required to start extraction, the costs rise significantly. To mitigate oneself from the high capital requirements, one can team up with other individuals and form a syndicate and share costs.

Nowadays there is an emergence of sponsors. These are individuals with cash which they can plough into mining projects. In return they agree to be paid a certain percentage of mining proceeds. They enter into a written or verbal agreement with mine owner and provide equipment such as compressors, generators and pumps. They also provide capital for consumables such as explosives, fuel and safety equipment depending on the nature of the agreement.