AFRICAN NEWS
Artisanal and small-scale
miners have disbanded their
representative body, the
Zimbabwe Miners Federation
(ZMF), and formed a new body,
the Zimbabwe Artisanal and
Small-Scale Miners’ Federation
(ZASMF), according to The
Herald Business newspaper.
ZMF was a representative
body that fronted the interests
of registered small-scale
miners including quarries
whose contribution to the
mining sector has been on
the increase. The sector is
now accounting, for instance,
for the largest portion of the
country’s gold deliveries after
overtaking their counterparts
in the primary production
sector, which is dominated by
conglomerates.
The move to morph into
ZASMF was necessitated by the
fact that the miners’ body felt
that they were being limited
in their activities under the
old order. In an interview
with The Herald Business,
ZMF president Henrietta
Rushwaya — who will assume
the temporary leadership of the
new body before the miners
chart a new map — says hope
was that they will be able to
take unregistered miners on
board in the new order.
“The previous body restricted
our activities to registered
miners only, yet reality is that
even the unregistered miners
are playing a significant role in
the small-scale and artisanal
miners’ overall output,” says
Rushwaya. “You don’t need
to go far to see how this was
long overdue; just look at the
Battlefields mine disaster that
killed miners. It was difficult
New miners’ body formed
Small-scale mining is a significant contributor to the Zimbabwean
economy, needing its own representation.
for us to come in and make
sure we help and ensure we
avoid such accidents because
people operating there were
unregistered miners. “So as
a leadership, we agreed that
let’s have a new way that is
all-encompassing and the first
step to this is to form a new
federation altogether that takes
care of this hurdle even from
the perspective of its name.
The leadership has agreed that
the same people who were
leading ZMF, continue in their
previous roles, then at the
appropriate time, we convene
and seek a way forward from
the miners themselves,” she
says. The sector will remain
important due to the geology
of the country, which makes
some mineral deposits more
amenable to small-scale
operations as opposed to
conglomerate mining.
Zambian cement producer stocks up
East Africa on the rise.
Gross domestic product
(GDP) growth for the African
continent is forecast to
accelerate to 4% in 2019, up
from 3.5% in 2018, according
to the African Development
Bank (AfDB) in its latest
economic outlook report.
This makes it the fastest-
growing region in the world
after Asia — and it could have
outstripped even Asia were
it not for faltering growth in
Nigeria and South Africa —
the continent’s two biggest
6_QUARRY SA | MAY/JUNE 2019
economies making up almost
half the continent’s GDP. This
makes it the fastest growth rate
since at least 2012.
Nigeria’s GDP is forecast to
expand 2.3% in 2019, below
the country’s rate of population
growth, as government
struggles to reduce the nation’s
oil dependence and attract
foreign investment. South
Africa’s expansion will be even
slower, at 1.7%, as it battles
self-induced recession. Both
countries are in the AfDB’s
list of the 10 slowest-growing
economies.
The continent’s economic
growth will instead be driven
by East Africa, which will be
the fastest-expanding region
for the fifth straight year.
Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda,
and Tanzania all feature
on the AfDB’s list of the 10
fastest-growing economies
for 2019. Egypt, the biggest
economy after Nigeria and
South Africa, will also help
drive growth. Output in Egypt
will rise about 5.5% in 2019
as the government’s structural
reforms attract more foreign
investment.
Subdued growth in southern
Africa is primarily due to South
Africa’s weak output, which
affects neighbouring countries,
AfDB says. While West Africa’s
prospects are more upbeat,
they may be clouded by risks
including uncertainty in global
commodity prices and security
concerns in some countries, the
lender says.
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