Mining cadastre system to be operational by March next year

THE Ministry of Mines and Mining Development has started rolling out the mining cadastre system countrywide with every province’s extractive activity expected to be computerised by March next year.

Mines Minister Winston Chitando told Parliament during said a pilot project was recently operationalised in Manicaland and is proving to be effective.

The mining cadastre system seeks to computerise the country’s mining rights and titles to enhance transparency and accountability in the administration of mining titles. The system will have all records of interest such as license holders’ rights restrictions and Government activities in the central database for storage of information on rights applications and other mining activities.

The ministry currently uses metal stakes or concrete beacons and other archaic demarcations to demarcate claims and rights. This comes as the Government is embracing technology and implementing digitisation as a key driver towards attainment of an upper middle-income society by 2030. “We are undertaking the required exploration to update the level of required information on some of the targeted assets and one of the issues that have led to disputes in the mining industry is use of manual system,” said the minister.

“As a ministry we are implementing the cadastre system. Essentially, we have been running a pilot project for cadastre in Manicaland province and it’s been running for the past one and half months.”

Minister Chitando said the hardware for the system had been delivered and training was being done to capacitate those who will be using the technology.

The digitalised system is expected to unlock potential value in the mining industry, which is envisaged to grow to a US$12 billion industry by 2023. It will also help curb corruption, double allocations and solve disputes.

“We are in the process of rolling it out to all provinces and our target is that the cadastre system will be up and running by March next year,” said Minister Chitando.

He said this will help in the use-it-or-lose it principle. Minister Chitando said there are principles and procedures outlined in the Mines and Minerals Act and the new Constitution, which require that as the principle is being implemented all affected parties are called before the mining officials and given timeliness as to when they would
implement it and resuscitate mines. – The Chronicle