Govt sets up National Mining Company

via Govt sets up National Mining Company – DailyNews Live 7 July 2014 by Ndakaziva Majaka

HARARE – Government has formed the National Mining Company (NMC) for the prospecting of the country’s minerals, after it was duped by a Canadian firm that was initially tasked to assess the country’s mineral value.

Mines deputy minister Fred Moyo last week told Parliament the NMC board is already in place; and the ministry is resourcing staff.

“We will soon acquire equipment and we will be able to carry out the work. We have a programme in place. We have released adequate ground through exclusive prospecting orders,” Moyo said.

He said his ministry is yet to decide which minerals get priority in that exercise.

“We also have two contracts that are operating at multinational level to carry out exercises; firstly covering investigation of our rivers and then also to do specifics using imagery systems.

“That is the work that is going on to make sure that we have knowledge on our mineral endowment,” he said.

It is national policy that government carries out exploration work and creates a mineral balance sheet for the country.

“A lot of ground is now available in the country for companies that want to investigate our mineral endowment,” he said.

This comes as an unnamed Canadian company reportedly left the country without publishing results after it was tasked with exploring the country’s mineral worth.

“I can confirm that there are two cases where a Canadian company was hired by government to do exploration work covering the entire spectrum of our mineral portfolio,” Moyo said.

The deputy minister told Parliament the Canadian embassy had been unresponsive to government’s efforts to obtain interpretation of the results.

“I also confirm that we are unable to access the results that emanated from that exercise for various reasons. There is also work that was done by other oil companies whose results were given to us but without full analysis,” Moyo said.

He also said his ministry was in the process of analysing the results.