ZIMBABWE: INDUSTRY/THE HERALD/21/6/18 SABANews 1

GURUVE – President EMMERSON MNANGAGWA of ZIMBABWE has officially reopened EUREKA Gold Mine in the north-eastern district of GURUVE.
THE HERALD says the authorities expect the plant to produce at least ONE-POINT-FIVE tonnes of the yellow metal per year at full production capacity after the next 18 months.
It says the reopening of the mine follows a capital injection of 60-MILLION US dollars by DELTA GOLD, a subsidiary of DALLAGLIO Investments – which has interests in RUMANIA and ZIMBABWE.
EUREKA Gold Mine, which stopped operating some 15 years ago, will employ at least 400 people when operating at maximum capacity.
President MNANGAGWA says his push is to partner investors to exploit the national resources for the benefit of communities and the rest of the nation.
He says the resources that are underground in GURUVE belong to the people in the area, but if they fail to exploit them, they will remain underground while families also remain poor.
Therefore, there is need for investors who will assist in the harvest of the minerals in order to develop as communities and as a nation, meaning the resources can only be useful to people after extraction.
President MNANGAGWA says his administration is focusing on economic development more than politics, and the reopening of EUREKA Gold will contribute significantly to the national gold production.
He says the event offers an opportunity for the mine to make its contribution to the national gold output expected to reach 100 tonnes per year in the next FIVE years.
People in GURUVE should therefore, start thinking big from the onset – because there are new immense possibilities that are overflowing in the sector.
President MNANGAGWA has also called on the miners to adopt new technologies to maximise output, saying equally vital is need to create more jobs gradually and foster mutually beneficial ties with communities around the area.
He says they have shown confidence in the country and their funding of the resumption of the mine shows how sure investors have become about the bright future of the SADC country.
President MNANGAGWA says his administration has resolved to take advantage of the natural resources in the country to grow the economy that has been battered for close to FOUR decades since independence in 1980.
He describes such a move as essential to create decent jobs and improve the standard of living of the people throughout the country.
The Head of State has told investors he will ensure their moneys are safe in ZIMBABWE, and the State will continue to facilitate exploration and establishment of new mines, re-open closed ones, and increase capacity utilisation.
EUREKA Gold Mine Process Director MIKE EVANS says they will equip the repository with a Carbon-in-Pulp plant, a modern facility to trap gold.
He says the company will employ 250 to 300 workers between now and construction, and another 400 when in full production.
They will start with a target of about 150 kilogrammes of gold per month, and, as they go deeper, more than 200 kilogrammes per month; and they expect to be running at maximum within 18 months.
Mr EVANS says TWO pumps arrived this week to remove the water from the pit, and FOUR more pumps are on the way, while they plan to get additional power reticulation to the pit to power them up.
He says the management hopes to start that within TWO weeks so that in THREE months later, they will be ready for the miners to comments operations.
The mining sector, like most other industries, had for some 90 years, up to independence, been connected to the mostly white commercial farming community who benefitted from the RHODESIAN colonial minority rule.
However, biting economic hardships following a World Bank and IMF sponsored Economic Structural Adjustment Program, and persistent droughts, the majority blacks could bear it no more and they violently invaded the farms en masse.
Since the fall of the former dictator ROBERT MUGABE last NOVEMBER, ZIMBABWE has been on the diplomatic offensive to win back foreign investors who left in sympathy with the displaced former commercial farmers./Sabanews/cam