Mutapa Gold Resources has taken full control of the Phoenix Prince mining area in Bindura following years of illegal mining chaos.
To oversee the transition and formalise operations across more than 100 shafts, Mutapa Gold has roped in local firm Nivad, led by Angeline Chisvo-Mpofu, as project managers.
Nivad brings critical legacy knowledge of the Phoenix Prince mine to the site. Leveraging this deep institutional history, the Nivad team is tasked with bringing structural stability, enforcing compliance, and restoring strict operational order to the area.
Speaking at a stakeholder engagement meeting in Bindura, Mutapa Gold’s General Manager for Contract Mining, Engineer Tirivashe Vere, emphasised that miners will now operate under formal contracts, with Nivad driving the day-to-day management and technical oversight.
“It has gone back and forth, but at the moment we have got control of our mining lease number 21,” Engineer Vere said. “We did not stop any of the activities, nor do we intend to stop them, but we wanted to transform what was being done to what can fit into our structures.”
Under Nivad’s project management, the new framework opts against an immediate shutdown of artisanal activities. Instead, the focus is on deploying technical horsepower—comprising geologists, metallurgists, mining engineers, and surveyors—to guide existing miners out of dangerous conditions.
“Your way of mining is not us who is going to determine it, because we are inheriting what you are doing,” Engineer Vere explained. “So we leave you to do your way of mining, but we will sort of guide it because we are bringing in technical horsepower.”
Nivad will spearhead safety improvements, monitor underground trends, conduct geotechnical assessments, scan underground voids, and track gold output to curb leakages. The management firm will also oversee shaft ownership to eliminate speculative holding.
“If you’re not performing, you’re going to be shacked out. You don’t come and take a shaft for speculation,” warned Engineer Vere. “We need to be orderly. And the order that was not there is not our business. Our business was to put new order.”
With Nivad’s project management expertise and historical understanding of Phoenix Prince, Mutapa Gold aims to secure legal compliance, streamline service providers across the value chain, and pave the way for future exploration, including aeromagnetic surveys and deep-level drilling.