Livingstone Marufu
VARIOUS investors have expressed interest in investing in Zimbabwe’s mining sector, particularly gold, in a continued breath of fresh air on the country’s prospects and confidence in its future, a RioZim executive has said.
The development comes after a number of investors had visited the country in the past months as mining continues to attract more investors.
RioZim chief executive Bheki Nkomo told Business Times his company was receiving serious investors daily and it is up to the company to get the best possible investors with the best offers on the table.
“I can tell you that there’s interest from every corner of the world and we are hosting so many potential investors so often… We are now looking for those with the best terms.
“The investors are looking for real companies to invest in and here we are, we are ready to deal with them where strong financial muscle is needed,” Nkomo said.
He said the $2,2 billion potential investor for the Sengwa project was already available and what is left is to finalise the deal.
Sengwa which has reserves of 1,3 billion tonnes of coal is expected to lessen power shortages in Zimbabwe which currently consumes around 1600 MW daily.
He said RioZim suffered due to serious power shortages during the first half of 2018 and there is need to invest in power.
Miners have always wanted power tariffs to be reduced to around 8cents/kWh.
Nkomo said there was positive policy development in the mining sector especially on policy saying the industry had approached to waive the 51:49 percent threshold on diamond and platinum since they require huge capital investment.
This year, government tweaked the indigenisation policy prescribing that the 51:49 percent threshold would only apply on diamond and platinum.
“The issue of indigenisation should not be extended to diamonds because of huge capital that is required to explore and mine them. As you have heard the government is looking into that and is considering changing the policy towards diamond.
“If they rectify the indigenisation policy on that more investors would be more interested in investing in that area. We are saying that because that’s the main port of concerns that investors raise, we hope government will quicken that process to allow more investors,” he said.
