While Addressing the senate yesterday Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube lamented gold leakages from the formal channels and said even though gold production had increased in Zimbabwe, deliveries at Fidelity Printers have decreased, The Insider reports.
Said Professor Mthuli:
The gold price has gone up because that is a refuge point when in times of crisis because of the COVID-19 crisis, but the deliveries at Fidelity have dropped and that has to do with various things like matsotsi who are taking gold out and all manner of things.
We are dealing with them, but we also dealt with the other thing which was a retention issue. We changed retention ratio from 45:55 to 70:30 in favour of the miner. So at least we have done our part as Government.
We still have to deal with the illicit side. So when we say gold output has gone down, it is not really correct. Technically, in a sense, it is about official deliveries to Fidelity but the actual gold output out there has gone up. We know that only that pane matsotsi, otsotsi bayakhupha igolide leliyana. That is our problem, but the future is bright with the mining sector.
The government did not shed light as to how they are dealing with the issue. Meanwhile, Fidelity granted a special license to businessman Kuda Tagwirei’s Landela Mining Venture to purchase gold from small gold producers and stock it at CBZ bank.
More: The Insider