By Patrick Chitongo
It’s 10 years now after the Women in Mining got the nod from the Government to start mining after getting mining claims in the Chief Gudo area, Chiredzi East constituency.
The 20 women each only managed to dig as far as only 2 metres at each claim and abandoned the exercise till today.
The women claim that they did not get the support they were promised by the Government that would allow them to procure equipment, market and trading licences. Adding to this, the mining site is in the mountains where there is no access to roads and networks.
The women claim that the Women Empowerment bank that was tasked to service the project with loans only took their details and never engaged them further.
Tsitsi Shamhu, one of the committee member of the group said they struggled to keep the momentum after several organisations, including financial that we’re earmarked to support the project dragged their feet.
She said most of the companies questioned the viability of the project adding that the mineral samples at the mine are weak to lure investors.
“The biggest challenge is capital equipment and finance. The samples that we got from the site show that there is fine Gold on top but the good product is underground where heavy machinery is needed.
Most of the women if not all can’t buy these machines and our hope was pinned on getting loans from banks”, she said.
She also said banks are asking them to produce collateral that does not exist among them.
“The Government, through our local leadership promised support from local banks to finance the project but this did not happen. We all abandoned the project despite having sunk some shafts there. Hopes to restart the projects are next to none because there is no one to finance us”, she added.
Mining is an expensive business that can not be easily achieved without equipment. The market for Gold is ready but extracting it out is proving to be a pipe dream.
The woman said the Mine claims to have a mixture of different minerals, Gold, Amethyst, and Diamond.
“This was going to be a good business because the area has a mixture of minerals that we were going to mine. We are still hoping that one day we will find sponsors for this project”, she added.
She hinted that Amethyst, a rare gem, is abundant in the area, followed by Gold deposits. Parts of the area also have Coal deposits.
The Gudo area is a mountain range sitting on the Great Dyke. It is too remote with no good road network. The mining site needs a fat pocket ranging to millions of dollars that is beyond the reach of these women. Most of these women don’t have mining experience and this project was spearheaded on partisan lines.
