Gold panning growing in Zimbabwe

With a crying baby on her back, Esnat Chibangara crouches in the fast flowing Pote River and slowly sifts through the fine sand in her bowl for the eighth time.

A sigh indicates that the 35-year-old woman has found nothing and she throws the sand back into the river.

Chibangara is involved in illegal gold panning, which is rampant in Shamva, a gold mining town 100 km northeast of the capital Harare.

“I need to eat today, tomorrow will take care of itself,” says Chibangara, a Mozambican refugee, who ran away from a refugee camp to earn a living through the activity.

Although gold panning is illegal, the government last year turned a blind eye to the practice in the wake of last season’s drought, described as the worst in living memory.

“Last year saw an increase in gold panning as a result of the drought that forced people to look into this area for subsistence,” Zimbabwe’s Minister of Mines, Eddison Zvobgo said recently.

The minister estimated that there are between 40,000 and 50,000 people involved in gold panning along rivers throughout this Southern African country.

To curb the increasingly popular practice, the ministry of mines legalized alluvial gold panning, but adopted stringent regulations to control it. “We want to control panning, without stopping it,” says Thomas Mpofu, deputy director in the Department of Natural Resources.

The law requires local councils to ensure that all panners are licensed, that they are resident in the council area, over 18 years of age, and “of good character.”

Shamva district administrator Erica Jones says her council has recently been having disagreements with government over how to enforce the regulations. For example, she asks, “how do we determine how to measure someone’s good character?”

Said Jones, “The state cannot expect us to do the enforcing of the regulations when the police force has failed to do so.”

Gold earned Zimbabwe US$143 million in 1991. During the same year mining contributed 8% to the country’s US$3.4 billion gross domestic product. Unfortunately, a lot of the gold from illegal panners does not contribute to Zimbabwe’s economy as it is sold privately instead of being deposited with the country’s reserve bank, the sole legal buyer, says a representative of the Small Scale Miners Association of Zimbabwe.

“Many cars, with foreign number plates from neighboring countries, and diplomats, frequent the Shamva area in search of gold,” confirms Gile Munyoro. Munyoro’s allegations were confirmed when four South Africans were arrested one day for attempting to smuggle 6 kg of gold out of the country. The men were found with the precious metal concealed in a briefcase just before they took off in a chartered aircraft at the Harare international airport.

Police in Shamva say more than 100 people have been arrested this year for either gold panning, or illegally trading in the precious metal. Gold panner Elliot Muchenje said many panners sell gold to legal claim owners who pay US$7 per gram or about US$200 per oz. — about US$130 less than the world market price.

“I sometimes make up to $60 (US$10) a day, compared with $180 (US$30) which farm laborers earn a month,” claimed Muchenje.

Muchenje is adamant that he will continue digging for gold in the Pote River despite the new regulations.

“I am into panning because my children have to live,” adds the 27-year-old father of two.

— From Inter Press Service.