By Tendai Chisiri
Zimbabwe School of Mines(ZSM) has started to have training on gemstone in Mutare as they look forward to include other minerals besides gold, it was revealed at a small scale miners workshop in Harare Monday.
Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) held the event in conjunction with ZSM with Mines and Mining Development Minister Winston Chitando attending the event.
Minister Chitando emphasised on the need to have technical skills in extracting the minerals.
During the question and answer segment, Chairperson of Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) Mashonaland West Chiedza Chipangura said their main challenge as small scale miners is lack of education to extract other minerals with ZSM only having lectures on gold alone.
“I was actually trained at ZSM then I was not doing gold but their training is focused on gold mining, yet we have got a lot of minerals being extracted by many miners”, she revealed.
” Some minerals have market value as they bring sustainability and add value to the economy but they are not being taken into consideration by ZSM.
She said ZSM’s training should focus to other minerals like glitter stones,gemstones,manganese and chrome. She added that as it stands much percentage of glitter stones substitutes were being imported into the country.
“This is why we end up having foreign investors to extract those minerals”, she said.
ZSM lecturer Tirivacho Jacha answered that training for gemstone was already being undertaken in Mutare.
He urged the small scale miners not to be hoodwinked by artisanal miners who explored gold reefs just above the the surface not that with its top just below.
A small scale miner had urged ZMS to upgrade their training since their geologists were being outwitted by artisanal miners(makorokoza) in exploring and pegging mines.
It was against this background that Tirivacho Jacha advised small scale miners that sometimes the reef by the miners last for a short period.
“Most of the artisans in the mines around Zimbabwe are from ZSM and the institution has recommendations coming outside the country.
News Sport Online 