Umguza small-scale miners cry foul over double pegging

ARTISANAL and small-scale miners in Umguza District, Matabeleland North have raised concern over double pegging of mining claims.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Umguza Miners Association revival meeting last week, the newly-appointed Umguza Miners Association chairman, Mr Themba Tshuma said there has been a growing number of mining claims that have been double pegged. He said a miner who had all the documents and had his claim pegged in 2004 clashed with a person who later on brought papers dating back to 1994, claiming to be the rightful owner of the pegged area.

“What usually happens is that when you start making money, you start to see well-financed people coming with documents which state that they also pegged the same area in the 1990s. What will be surprising is that you would have been mining at the place for six years. You then ask yourself where were those people before you unearthed more gold in the place?”

He also noted that the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development office in the province was failing to address the issue. However, the provincial mining director for Matabeleland North Mr Farayi Ngulube said the issue of double-pegging was not peculiar to Umguza District.

“It’s inevitable in most cases because either there will be human error or the cause will have to do with the state of our maps that are torn, tattered and most likely now invisible due to being handled countless times over the years. So there is a need for new maps and putting the cadastre system into use to address these issues,” said Mr Ngulube.

Commenting on the issue of double pegging, Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Mining Development chairperson Mr Edmond Mkaratigwa said the case of double pegging in Matabeleland North was a tip of the iceberg regarding what was prevailing in the country.

“Our pegging system has been mostly manual in terms of boundaries and that is why we have always been making a lot of noise for the introduction of the electronic mining cadastre system and the process is moving, although not as fast as we anticipated. As a committee we have recommended the speeding up of the implementation of the cadastre system in the country,” said Mr Mkaratigwa.-sundaynews