ZIMBABWE-ECONOMY: Poor Run Risk Of Gold Fever

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

BINDURA, Oct 9 1995 (IPS) - Leaving a husband and two children at home, Tambudzai Mawunda packed her bag and headed north to join thousands of jobless Zimbabweans who are eking out a living digging for gold.

The 25-year-old Mawunda chose Garat Claim, a private make-shift gold panning settlement around Bindura, 90 kms from the capital Harare and 50 kms from her home.

It is a hard life. The little gold found after hours of digging means you can just scrape by — not hanging up your shovel and retiring in splendour.

And it’s also dangerous.

Early this month, as Mawunda negotiated her way down a shaft, disaster struck.

“After spending some hours digging, somebody raised an alarm,” recalls Edwin Marechera, in charge of security at the settlement. “Everybody rushed to the scene and found that the tunnel in which Tambudzai (Mawunda) was panning had crumbled.”

“The incident occurred at around 11 O’clock. And we retrieved the dead body four hours later,” Marechera explained.

“Upto now we have not yet filled the pit with earth,” he says pointing at the sagged traces of the tunnel. “We are still waiting for the spirit medium (from Bindura) to perform some traditional ritual to cleanse the shaft before we resume full- scale panning.”

“We only began half-day panning four days after the incident to enable the 80 panners to raise some money for food,” Marechera says.

Mawunda’s death is far from an isolated example of the hazards run by the poor in the high-risk search for a living. Since last year, more than a dozen people have died in gold panning related- accidents across Zimbabwe.

The worst incident happened at a disused mine on the outskirt of the capital Harare in March where three people suffocated on poisonous gases emitted by explosives detonated while they were in the tunnel.

Although affected by such deaths, panners like Innocent Kandwe regards the perils he faces as any other risk encountered at the work place.

“Gold panning has generated employment for people who have few alternative to earn a similar level of income in the rural areas,” he shrugs. “The income generated allows panners to support their families, help pay school fees and buy food.”

The 31-year-old from Rusape, some 258 kms from here, says he earns an average of 50 dollars (about six US dollars) a day from mining, enough to feed a family of three.

“This amount is far more than the meagre monthly wage of 300 dollars which labourers get from tilling the land,” he adds, “You can make this kind of money here in a day or hours, depending on luck.”

Gold is Zimbabwe’s largest hard currency earner after tobacco and last year output reached 20,564 kg valued at just over 238 million US dollars.

“At the current rate of production, output is expected to reach 22 tonnes this year, bringing into the country over 2.5 billion dollars (297 million US dollars) in foreign exchange,” says Derek Bain, chief executive at the chamber of mines.

Half of all gold produced each year in Zimbabwe is by panners rather than mining firms, says Environmental 2000, a local non- governmental organisation.

As a result, the state loses over 4.1 million US dollars monthly to illegal dealers, most of which ends up outside the country, according to Giles Munyoro, president of the Small Scale Miners Association.

But panners like Mevias Mawundukwe insists they sell their gold for 70 Zimbabwe dollars (8.23 US dollars) a gramme to the owners of the settlement who in turn sell, as required by law, to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

“We don’t sell it to strangers,” he says.

Yet a gramme of gold fetches over 10 US dollars on the black market here.

Given the effects of drought, retrenchments and a troubled economy, still more Zimbabweans are likely to turn to gold mining, despite the risks and the impact on the environment.

“The ever-increasing cost of agricultural inputs, coupled with droughts, which Zimbabwe continues to experience, have forced most rural folk to turn away from agriculture to alluvial gold panning,” notes an Environment 2000 report.

Over 200,000 Zimbabweans are currently either dredging river banks or digging pits in search of the elusive metal. This is a 100 percent jump from last year’s recorded figure of 100,000, says the NGO.

The result is land degradation and siltation of rivers.

To combat the ecological damage, some senior officials like attorney-general Patrict Chinamasa, have been publicly calling on the government to marshall the political courage to ban panning.

Experts estimate that up to 4,600 kms of Zimbabwe’s rivers are being worked. To police these areas 3,000 extra officers would be required at a cost of 25.8 million dollars.

But in the face of a 40 percent unemployment rate, the government is unlikely to crack down.

In recent months, Godfrey Mandesa, a miner at Garat Claim, has noticed that its not only the out of work who have come to the settlement. Panners now include low-income government officials like clerks and teachers looking to supplement their incomes.