Women in mining cry for equipment, soft loans

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 17:58:02 +0000

By LINDA SOKO TEMBO

ZAMBIAN women in mining have outlined numerous challenges in the sector which include lack of equipment.

Association of Zambian Women in Mining president (AZWIN), Mary Lubemba has called for empowerment of women in the sector to promote smooth operations in mining activities.

Mrs Lubemba told the Daily Nation that numerous challenges faced by women in the sector were due to lack of machinery to extract minerals.

She explained that there was a huge demand for mineral extracts both on the local and international market hence the need to empower women in the sector.

“These challenges can be eased if women are empowered to improve our mining.

“We do not have the machinery to extract the minerals that have ready markets sine we have people who come from different parts of the world to buy the commodity from us,” she said.

Ms Lubemba said women in mining did not export the minerals because they had a readily available market in Zambia with some clients coming into the country.

She urged government and other stakeholders to help empower the association by giving the women the much needed support including soft loans or grants so that the mining industry can be improved.

“The only challenge that we have is machinery and also if our women can be helped with loans or grants so that the small scale miners can buy the necessary equipment they may need to improve the industry because most of our members do not have assets like houses which can be used as collateral to obtain loans,” she said. Ms Lubemba said there was need to add value addition in the country by empowering women not only with equipment for extracting minerals but also for making finished products rather than selling raw materials most of the time.