Private Sector Development Association has stressed the need for government to analyze and assess all gold mining areas in the country and legitimize illegal miners.
Association President Yusuf Dodia told Money FM News in an interview that the recent arrest of 44 illegal Gold miners in Muchinga Province is an interesting piece of information, which government must work on.
Mr. Dodia observed that government has been trying to formalize gold mining which at some point became productive in Rufunsa area where some people were mining illegally.
“The recent announcement that 44 Gold miners were arrested for illegally mining gold in some part of Zambia is an interesting piece of information because I think first of all it is very important for us to look at what government has been trying to do, which is to try to legitimize miners.”
“If you remember Gold mining became quite prolific in Rufunsa area where people were mining illegally and I remember the government saying what they wanted to do was to legitimize these people, to formalize them,” Mr. Dodia stated.
He said if the 44 gold miners who have been arrested have no intentions of doing business in a legitimate way, the law must then take its course but that if they need to be formalized, government must go on the ground to register them so that they can be monitored and allow business to run normally.
“So my question is, are these 44 gold miners, miners that need to be formalized rather than to be arrested? Or are these people who are going into gold mining areas like thieves at night and getting the gold meaning that they have no intentions of doing business in a legitimate way?”
‘But if these are miners who are saying we mine here and we would like to mine in a formal way , then the idea is to get the authorities to go there and formalize and register them so that they can be monitored and business can go on as usual. So I think there is a big issue for government to do a bit of assessment analysis and come up with the way forward,” he said.
Recently, Police in Chama District in Muchinga Province arrested 44 illegal gold miners who were also found in possession of 10 kilograms of gold which has since been confiscated.