Young miners pledge to increase gold deliveries to FGR in 2022 and beyond
By The Mining Vision Staff Writer
The Young Miners Foundation has pledged to increase gold deliveries to Fidelity Gold Refinery (FGR) in view of achieving an average annual Gross Domestic Product growth rate of above 5% in the next 5 years, the foundation’s Chief Executive Officer Payne Farai Kupfuwa has said.
This follows a recent report from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe which indicated that small scale gold producers delivered more than 18 000kg of gold to FGR.
“The Young Miners family is encouraged by the 5.5% increase in gold deliveries to Fidelity Gold Refinery (FGR) from 19 052.65kg in 2020 to 29 629.61kg in 2021, with small scale producers delivering 18 470.61kg owing to the Gold Incentive Scheme introduced in May 2021, and our hard work and loyalty,” Kupfuwa said
His standpoint is that the country can further increase formal gold deliveries by professionalizing small scale operations to curb leakages of the yellow metal. According to government statistics, the bulk of the gold is extracted by the artisanal and small scale sector producing about 63 % of Zimbabwe’s recorded gold production.
“By formalizing and professionalizing our small scale operations, we will be able to account for our produce and monitor the processes which will plug gold leakages and smuggling of gold out of the country in 2022,” he said
YMF CEO is also of the view that young miners need to create strategic synergies and collaborations with partners in and outside the mining value chain in order to establish a more corporate mining structure in view of attaining an upper middle income economy.
“We entered the year 2022 with our eyes lifted to see a new life and poised to lunge at strategic opportunities behind the haze of the dreadful COVID-19 variants. This year, Young Miners Foundation is running under the theme Young miners’ collaborative corporate participation for a sustainable mining economy by 2030.”
Kupfuwa also revealed plans of finalizing the establishment of a Young Miners Academy (YMA) by August 2022; the academy is aimed at equipping young miners to become professional and entrepreneurial.
“We are bullish in our approach to meet set targets of setting up a Young Miners Academy and we are finalizing on securing our first YMA campus in the Midlands Province.”
YMF is an organization that was established in the mining town of Zvishavane in 2010 to advance and upscale youth entrepreneurial participation in mining enterprise development. The Foundation envisions a society were young people are involved in their own development and that of their communities
