By Tapiwa Machemedze
SMALL scale miners in Guruve have set sights on increasing gold output by the end of the year and contributing towards the attainment of the 12 billion United States dollar mining industry next year.
The gold mining sub-sector is buoyant after delivering 29.6 tonnes of the yellow metal to Fidelity Printers and Refiners last year up from 19 tonnes in 2020, translating to a 36 percent increase in deliveries.
Guruve miner, Cyril Mureya is among those determined to consolidate the impressive gold deliveries obtained last year after courting investors to expand mine capacity.
“I am geared to put a percentage to the fiscus in terms of my mining that’s why personally I have invited investors from Asia, you’ve seen them, I have them, they are pouring over 1.2 million us into this project which I think by the year ending obviously will be employing over 450 people,” said Mureya.
With small scale miners accounting for an average of 60 percent output per annum, increased production is cascading down to local communities.
“We deliver the little that we get to fidelity. It is our vision that we grow from small scale to medium-scale and probably to large scale, right now we are at small scale but in terms of our operations we are always busy,” said one miner.
Statistics from Fidelity Printers and Refiners, the country’s sole gold buyer, are already promising this year as gold deliveries rose by over three hundred percent in January to 2 867.9 kilogrammes compared to 997 kg in January last year.