By Own Correspondent

THE Jesuit Social Justice and Development Center, Silveira House has implored authorities in Zimbabwe to consider compelling all mining companies to set up value addition and beneficiation plants locally as a strategy to unlock jobs for millions of poor citizens.

It is estimated that Zimbabwe has lost $12 billion through illegal trade involving multinational companies from rich countries in the mining sector, part of which has been blamed on the lack of aggressive beneficiation.

Some sources estimate that Zimbabwe could be losing about 200% more revenue through raw minerals exports.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Zimbabwe Alternative Mining Indaba (ZAMI) held in Bulawayo recently , Silveira House director, Fr Clemence Mutimutema said a deliberate beneficiation policy will effectively address most of the mining-related problems the country is facing.

“As a nation we are still far away from realising the full benefits from our minerals partly because of the stage of development we are still at. We have not yet reached the processing stage which means that the resources are not entirely benefitting us because we are not value-adding them.

“If we can process the minerals the country will be better positioned to set better guidelines to track the minerals from extraction to final market destination level,” he said.

Fr Mutimutema warned that continued concentration on raw minerals exploitation is exposing the nation to huge losses which could be otherwise benefitting the country’s populace.

He said the lack of an aggressive approach has left some Chinese miners with an easy leeway to export raw minerals back home and extract much more value.

“Given the circumstances, the urgent role of the government is to enforce conditions on the mining companies to process what they extract within Zimbabwe.

“There is a need for the government to embrace a holistic approach which includes all key stakeholders in charting the way forward in reaching full-scale value addition.

Zimbabwe is on record for implementing several beneficiation policies such as Export tariffs and embargoes, Base Minerals Export Control Orders, Higher taxes and local content initiatives.

However, lax borders coupled with authorities’ lack of aggressive implementation of the obtaining policies have always enabled miners to find an easy way out.