By Business Reporter – Thursday 27 August 2020
LOCAL – HARARE (Mining Index) – OUTSTANDING bullion payments are expected to resume next week, the Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF) has revealed following a meeting with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor John Mangudya earlier today.
“We just came out of a meeting with the RBZ governor and he has apologised and committed that outstanding FPR Bullion Payments will be done starting next week,” said ZMF president Henrietta Rushwaya.
Miners sell gold to Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR), which has been struggling to pay them due to foreign currency scarcities.
Rushwaya apologised for delayed payments and urged all miners to continue sending their bullion to Fidelity.
“Any inconvenience that has arisen out of this is sincerely regretted. Let us continue sending our bullion to Fidelity and if we experience payment challenges thereafter, kindly feel free to raise the alarm through our ZMF Secretariat for engagement with FPR/ RBZ,”
“Once again, as ZMF we sincerely apologise and regret for the suffering you have endured in the past 2 weeks,” she said.
Since May this year, the central bank has been facing challenges in paying gold miners owing to shortages of foreign currency in the country.
FPR general manager Fradreck Kunaka in May this year alluded foreign currency scarcities to the Covid-19 pandemic which he said has had negative effects that have affected the operation to full capacity of the whole economy and has not spared the inflow of foreign currency into the country.
“The USD is imported and with the lockdown, the operation of flights has been affected, with reduced movement, cash has not been received as frequently to satisfy the demand,” said Kunaka. ENDS// www.miningindex.co.zw
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You see this is the problem with these thieves. On one hand RBZ tells people there good Foreign currency in the country via exporters and the interbank auctions every week. Then coupled with the facts that Fidelity collects gold from small scale miners every week and it is sold directly to Rand SA and they are paid immediately in USD to RBZ on every shipment, But miners are still not being paid when RBZ receive funds from Rand into Financial Markets accountS at RBZ. These dogs just will not do the right thing. It is like Zimbabwe has been turned back to a slave state. The people do all the work and then government feeds them scraps just enough to keep being a slave to the state. Now government has dictated how much money people can spend on a daily basis in their mobile money accounts. It is a socialist regime run by crooks, thieves and murderers of their own people. Government has lied to people so much in terms of their corruption about Forex. They do not even keep up with their own lies.