By ROGERS KALERO
GOVERNMENT should first understand the challenges small-scale miners are facing in their operations that has made them fail to develop their mines before thinking of cancelling or repossessing their dormant licences’ Emerald and Semi-Precious Stones Mining Association of Zambia (ESMAZ) President Victor Kalesha has said
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Mr Kalesha said repossessing or cancelling licences of some dormant mines in the restricted emerald area of Lufwanyama was not the solution to the problem, but that Government should find out what challenges small-scale miners were facing in their operations.
In an interview, Mr Kalesha said lack of equipment and capital were some of the major challenges facing the small-scale miners and it was important that Government should find ways of empowering them through the leasing of equipment to the miners.
“If Government decides to revoke the licences of the dormant mines, then it will give them to who? If the licences are revoked, then these dormant mines will be up for grabs and may be taken by foreign companies and Zambians who own these dormant mines will remain with nothing.”
“So, we are pleading to Government not to revoke the licences of dormant mines, but find ways of empowering the owners of these mines. Most of these mines are owned by Zambians and the challenges they are facing include lack of equipment and capital,’’ Mr Kalesha said
He said it would be unfair to revoke licences of some dormant mines when giant emerald mines like Kagem Emerald Mining Company, which were sitting on 50 square kilometre of land, but were only mining on a 10 square-kilometre of land leaving the rest of lthe and dormant.
“So, just like the small-scale miners whose mines are dormant, even the huge piece of land at Kagem which is not being mined is also dormant. For Kagem, it has the best emeralds in the world but only a small piece of it was being mined, leaving a huge chunk idle.
“So it will not be fair to revoke licences of some small-scale dormant mines when giant emerald mines like Kagem Emerald Mining Company which were sitting on 50 square kilometres of land , but were only mining on a 10 square kilometre of land leaving out the rest huge piece of land dormant,’’ he said
A fortnight ago, Mr Kalesha said Grizzly Mining Limited was to procure an exploration core drilling machine meant to help small-scale miners know the potential of their tenement and make their exploration much easier
Mr Kalesha said the giant emerald mine decided to procure the exploration core drilling machine as a response to the call by ESMAZ to procure the machine meant to help small-scale miners know the potential of their tenement
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