By Business Reporter – Monday 20 July 2020
HARARE (Mining Index) – FIDELITY Printers and Refiners (FPR) has revealed that over 20 gold buying agents have been licensed, but refused to reveal the list of names of companies and individuals citing confidentiality.
According to FPR, the licensed gold buying agents have been delivering gold to the state-owned gold buying centre while those that did not deliver gold had their permits terminated.
“FPR has more than 20 licensed gold buying agents. The more than 20 gold buying agents are in addition to all registered Custom Milling Plants that are Agents of FPR by law,”
“All gold buying agents that have received permits at FPR are delivering gold to FPR and those that did not had their licences not being renewed on expiry. Most have been able to fulfil that since renewal of the permit is based on deliveries brought forward.”
“We are not able to disclose the names of the permit holders as this goes against our policy on confidentiality with the handling of client information,” said FPR general manager Fradreck Kunaka.
The licensing of Freda Rebecca Gold Mine, a subsidiary of Landela Investments sparked debated last month after the gold mine was issued with a gold buying permit to buy gold direct from Artisanal and Small-scale Miners (ASM) operating on its 60 000 hectares of gold claims across the country, in Manicaland and Mashonaland Provinces.
Fidelity spelt out new gold buying requirements in a press statement released on 26 May 2020 saying,
“Large gold buying agents must have a mining operation producing a minimum of fifty (50) kilograms fine gold per month to qualify for a Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR) agency permit,”
“Small scale gold buying agents will have to enter into an Agency Agreement with FPR, which contract shall clearly spell out the terms and conditions under which the agents shall operate,” said Kunaka in a press statement.
Fidelity however said there are no set targets for gold buying agents as individual or company deliveries differ based on availability of gold.
“One of the requirements for the issuance of the Gold Buying Permit are that, the applicant proposes during the interview what they are capable of buying per month. Therefore, individual deliveries differ based on resource availability so there is no expected written down delivery per month per license holder,” said Kunaka.
According to Fidelity, the proposed criteria for issuance of a gold buying permit include,
- Police clearance for individual buyers and for their company directors/agents,
- Propose under the current license / propose during an interview how much gold the prospective agent is capable of buying per month,
- For companies, company profile showing directors names and physical addresses,
- Passport size photo for the principal license holder and company directors,
- Current tax clearance for companies,
After obtaining the above requirements, the prospective client is then interviewed by the National Gold Mobilisation Taskforce technical team, which then recommends and instructs FPR to issue a permit.
No application fee is required to apply for a gold buying permit and no application forms are completed.
In January 2018, FPR benchmarked US$ 10 000 as an amount that a prospective company would need to disclose in its bank account as proof of funds to undertake gold purchases. ENDS// www.miningndex.co.zw
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