Minister takes up gold panning

Source: The Zimbabwe Standard

Date: 9 October, 2005

Author: Nqobani Ndlovu

Bulawayo - The Deputy Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Abednigo Ncube, recently led heavily armed anti-riot police to evict gold-panners who had struck a rich vein on a gold claim, The Standard can reveal. The incident happened last Friday. Authoritative sources in Matabeleland South said upon learning of the small-scale miners' windfall at Caesar East Two Mine, the minister immediately applied for a mining licence to extract gold from the same claim. Matabeleland South Deputy Mining Commissioner Raphael Moyo told The Standard that Ncube, who is also the MP for Gwanda, applied for a mining licence last week, which he was granted within a few hours. "We gave the Minister the licence on Friday after he had applied for it. He got his authorisation from our head office in Harare to mine at Caesar East Two," he said. Assistant inspector Trust Ndlovu of Matabeleland South Police confirmed that the police raided Caesar East Two Mine, located on the outskirts of Gwanda, the Matabeleland South provincial capital. "Right now I do not have any correspondence from our district office in Gwanda. They usually carry out the raids on the panners but this time they did not provide us with the figures of those arrested," Ndlovu said. The Deputy Minister was livid when contacted for comment: "What do you want from me? I do not talk to The Standard. Go and talk to other people who are interested in talking to you." Gwanda deputy mayor, Petros Mukwena said there were pitched battles between the police and the small-scale miners who refused to leave the gold claim resulting in 50 of them being arrested for illegal mining. "What the deputy minister did is appalling and regrettable. It's harassment of poor people trying to make ends meet. He should be stopped from mining at the gold mine and investigated by the police," Mukwena said. International investors are now shying away from Zimbabwe because of State-sanctioned lawlessness, which has resulted in the breakdown of the rule of law, characterised by the plunder of private enterprises.