THE governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), John Mangudya, says authorities are expecting a massive 35 tonnes of gold this year, on the back of higher deliveries by both small-scale and major miners.
Addressing a parliamentary portfolio committee on Business and Finance on Monday, Mangudya also queried a recent report by a local non-governmental organisation which claimed that the country was losing three tonnes of gold every month due to leakages.
“I am not very sure about gold being smuggled because I am not a law enforcement agent.
“And, as the governor of the central bank, I am not qualified to give even an estimate or guesstimate on that area because I read it in the newspapers and there are law enforcement agents.
“As the central bank we have Fidelity Gold Refinery (FGR). We have seen gold production improving from 19,6 tonnes to 29 tonnes last year, and this year we are seeing the same trend increasing and we are expecting 35 tonnes of gold by the end of the year,” Mangudya said.
“We are accounting for all the gold that is delivered to Fidelity Gold Refinery by both the large-scale producers and small-scale producers,” he added.
Meanwhile, prominent gold buyer Pedzisai “Scott” Sakupwanya — who runs Better Brands Jewellery (BBJ), the government’s biggest gold agent — has especially been credited with working with small-scale miners to raise deliveries to FGR.
BBJ raked in a whopping US$420 million in the first quarter of 2022 alone, after it delivered seven tonnes of gold to FGR.
Announcing the figures in June, FGR said the total gold delivered in the first quarter was just over 10 tonnes, which was a jump of 88 percent from the 5,6 tonnes recorded in the first quarter of last year.
Sakupwanya has attributed the increases in deliveries to a gold incentive scheme introduced by authorities last year in May.
“The incentives have been well received by small-scale miners whose response is reflected in the record deliveries.
“We are very grateful to the government for coming up with incentives which have spurred small-scale miners to produce more gold.
“What this tells you is that with good incentives, small-scale miners have the capacity to contribute significantly to the fiscus.
“With enough resources, we can do wonders in terms of gold output. We can also stop the leakages that continue to plague the country,” Sakupwanya told the Daily News’s sister paper, the Daily News On Sunday last month.