Zimbabwe govt has failed to mine rich platinum deposits given by Zimplats

Sunday Times (October 16) says while the Zimbabwe government has been frantically trying to seize foreign-owned mining companies under the guise of indigenisation and empowerment, it has failed to mine rich platinum deposits given back to it by Zimplats.

Meantime, the government has even sold off some of its platinum reserves to dubious speculators in shady deals.

This issue came to the fore this week when SA's Implats, the majority shareholder in Zimplats, offered to help the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation, to mine platinum and provide technical assistance to extract the huge reserves.

In recent years platinum reserves surrendered to government as part of empowerment credits have been changing hands among speculators in dubious deals which have not benefited the country.

Instead of getting involved in productive mining activities, government has been sitting on massive platinum reserves and selling off claims while campaigning to force operations such as Zimplats and Mimosa to surrender 51% of their equity to investors linked to Zanu-PF.

Implats CEO David Brown exposed government's failure to mine in the presence of President Mugabe on Thursday during the launch of a community ownership trust in partnership with Zimplats.

Brown offered Zimplats technical assistance to help ZMDC, which has run down several gold mines, to develop an unused claim valued at $153 million.

ZMDC extracts alluvial diamonds at the controversial Marange fields, and most of the revenue from there has not been accounted for.