What you need to know about the mining laws of Zimbabwe Part 5

 

Introduction

 

The Minister of Finance, Prof Mthuli Ncube has recently put in place measures meant to stabilise the economy and one of the measures set to be operative as at the 1st of June 2023 is to ensure through Fidelity Gold Refinery (Pvt) Ltd that a system to manage traceability of gold from its origin, both commercial and small scale, in line with international standards is put in place. This is a move to ensure that there is strict compliance with the laws around the mining sector and hence the significance of looking into the different types of licences that one can obtain in order to lawfully extract gold in Zimbabwe.

 

Exclusive Prospecting Order

In terms of section 87 (1) any person may make written application to the Board for the making of an order in his favour over any defined area in Zimbabwe, including any area reserved under section thirty-five of the Act. Land referred to in Section 35 will be land that would have declared “reserved land” against prospecting by the Secretary. Suffice to mention is that the Exclusive Prospecting Order is meant for large scale mining activities.

 

What is required of the applicant?

 

The applicant is required by the Act to;

(a) Deposit with the Secretary in respect of a period of six months a sum calculated at the rate of two cents per month for every hectare or part of a hectare of the area in respect of which the order is sought provided that the sum to be deposited shall not exceed ninety thousand as per the Act.

(b) Furnish the board with full information relating to his/her financial status

(c) Furnish the board with particulars of the mineral he/she wishes to mine

(d) If the applicant is a company, the full names and nationality of the directors and the full names by which those directors have at any time been known in any part of the world

(e) A programme of the prospecting operations he intends to carry out within the reservation during the first period of six months from the date of granting the order etc

 

Consideration of the application by the board

On receipt of the application the chairman of the Board shall be mandated by the Act to publish a notice in the Gazette giving details of the application and inviting objections thereto; and if in any application authorisation is sought to prospect on any registered base mineral blocks within the proposed reservation, give written notice to every registered holder of any such block. Upon gazetting, the Board might receive objections and if such objections are received. The Board will call upon the applicant together with those who would have objected to come and lead evidence in some of their claims which evidence will be given consideration.

After hearing the evidence, if the Board is satisfied that the applicant is a fit and proper person to obtain an order and is of adequate financial standing to undertake the operations under an order; and that it would not be against the national interest to make such an order; the Board may, subject to section ninety-three, recommend to the Minister the making of an order in favour of the applicant over such area and subject to such conditions as the Board may think fit to recommend. Unfortunately the Act does not define what is meant by “fit and proper”, however, the criteria is discretionary and much weight is put on the capability of the Applicant to carry out such intensive projective to the satisfaction of the intended goals meant for these provisions.

 

Conclusion

This is it for this week and wishing those that are developing an interest in the field of mining the best of adventure. In part 6, our focus will be on the issuances incidental to the issuance of the order and issues relating to rights accruing to the holder of an Exclusive Prospecting Order.

 

Fungai Chimwamurombe is a registered legal practitioner and Senior Partner at Chimwamurombe Legal Practice and can be contacted for feedback at fungai@zenaslegalpractice.com and WhatsApp 0772 997 889. Tapiwa Muhlwa is a Senior Associate, email: tapiwa@ zenaslegalpractice.com

 

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button