Prepaid power can secure supply to small miners: ZMF

THE Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) has urged its members to migrate to the prepaid smart metering electricity billing system to avoid worsening the power supply situation and negatively affecting their operations.

Recently, ZESA said all medium and large customers in the commercial, industrial, tourism, mining sectors and institutions that are still on postpaid billing, should migrate to the prepaid billing platform with effect from October 1, 2024.

The power utility said the inclusion of industry, commerce, and mining sectors to the prepaid platform was expected to address the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company’s significant debt of over ZiG5,7 billion.

Industry, commerce and mining account for 74 percent of this debt, with each sector contributing 50 percent and 12 percent respectively

As a result of the debt, ZESA was struggling to import electricity and Zimbabwe’s electricity challenges have been exacerbated by the low dam levels at Kariba Dam, which supplies water for electricity at Kariba Power Station.

The Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) indicated on its website that as of Friday last week, Kariba was generating 215 megawatts (MW) against an installed capacity of 1 050MW while the country’s largest thermal station, Hwange with an installed capacity of 1 520MW was producing 1 019MW.

ZESA believes the prepayment system will empower customers in managing their electricity consumption and capacitate the utility in improving service delivery and achieving energy security. In an interview, ZMF chief executive officer Mr Wellington Takavarasha whose organisation represents the interests of small-scale miners in the country, said failure to comply with the directive, has a net effect of disrupting small-scale mining operations and ultimately productivity.

Mr Wellington Takavarasha said although a majority of their members are using diesel to power their operations — those operating using electricity should comply with the utility’s directive to avoid intermittent disconnections that adversely impact the small-scale mining industry’s output.

“A majority of our members are presently running their operations on diesel because of the unavailability of electricity in the country.

“A few of our members use electricity; we are encouraging them to migrate to the prepaid metering system to avoid intermittent disconnections ultimately affecting gold output by the entire sector.

“ZESA is at the moment failing to import power because it is owed ZiG5,7 billion and this is also affecting our operations even if most of our operations as small-scale miners, are diesel-powered when we go to the mills for milling of the ore, we find the stamp mills down and this negatively affects production by the entire small-scale mining industry,” he said.

Artisanal and small-scale miners account for at least 60 percent of the country’s gold output.

According to the country’s exclusive buyer of the yellow metal, Fidelity Gold Refinery (FGR), artisanal and small-scale miners delivered 2,4 tonnes of the precious mineral, which was a 50 percent increase from the July figure of 1,6 tonnes.

Underpinned by the small-scale mining industry, Zimbabwe’s overall gold deliveries during the same period under review improved by 36 percent to 3,4 tonnes compared to 2,5 tonnes in July this year.

Large-scale producers’ output increased to one tonne from 999 kilogrammes in July.

The remarkable increase in the mineral’s output is largely attributed to the recent scrapping of the 15 percent value-added tax (VAT) on gold deliveries by the Treasury.

The tax was scrapped through Statutory Instrument (SI) 105 of 2024.

The Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe is on record stating that prior to the scrapping of the 15 percent VAT on gold, the policy was promoting side-marketing of the precious mineral.

This latest increase follows a strong performance in the second quarter of this year when gold deliveries improved by over 28 percent compared to the prior quarter.

Total gold output in the second quarter amounted to 7,7 tonnes up from 6 tonnes in the first quarter.

Gold is the country’s largest single export earner from which the Government targets 40 tonnes this year from 30,1 tonnes in 2023.

By next year, the yellow metal is expected to generate US$4 billion from around US$3 billion currently.-herald