Gold output for 2016 is at 22 tonnes, which is lower than the government target of 24 tonnes. This has been attributed to the government’s failure to pay small scale miners, due to the cash shortages. As a result, the small scale miners are now looking for alternatives and are no longer delivering gold to Fidelity Printers.
Minister of Mines and Mining, Walter Chidhakwa said:
Somewhere in September we slipped because of the cash shortages….the miners told me that if you do not pay us cash we will sell elsewhere and that is where we lost it otherwise we could have been at 23 tonnes or 24 tonnes.
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