By Shame Makoshori
The Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) is set to announce a new general manager (GM), a year after its board fired Sydney Simango and two other senior executives over alleged incompetence, The Financial Gazette can report.
Chief operating officer (COO), Caesar Zishumba and chief finance officer (CFO), Wilson Chinzou were also shown the door by the ZMDC board over failure to turnaround the company’s fortunes.
Simango was only a year into the role after replacing long serving GM, Jerry Ndlovu, who left ZMDC in 2014.
ZMDC chairman, David Murangari confirmed last week that they had settled for a new GM who is set to be announced this week.
It was not clear if the ZMDC would also unveil a new COO and CFO but Murangari said he would make an official announcement.
The Financial Gazette understands that the GM emerged from a list of six short-listed candidates whose names were not disclosed.
“I am not going to disclose the details but we will make an announcement next week (this week),” Murangari told The Financial Gazette.
“I cannot give you a specific date but we will involve the press,” he added.
The new ZMDC GM will have his work cut out.
Out of the ZMDC’s four gold mines, only one was operating at the time of the previous executive’s departure.
The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development says several joint venture agreements entered into by the ZMDC in the platinum sector are dormant, in the process failing to exploit large hectares with huge resource endorsements.
About 26 497 hectares of ground holding an equivalent of 1,748 billion tonnes of platinum group metals (PGM) ore containing nearly 200 million ounces of PGMs were said to be dormant during the second quarter of this year, according to an internal publication of the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, the Mineral Beneficiation & Value Addition.
The publication said at a basket price of $1 000 per ounce, the dormant ground under the stewardship of the ZMDC is worth nearly $200 billion.
“Most of the joint ventures were entered around 2006, and to date, nearly 10 years down the line, no meaningful progress has been made. Calculations on the grounds held by dormant ZMDC JVs indicate that the combined ore tonnage in situ and potentially mineable tonnage assuming 30 percent geological and mining losses together with a typical mining rate are 1 748 million and 1 224 million respectively. This should yield approximately two million ounces of PGMs per year,” the publication said.
In addition to activating the joint venture projects in the platinum mining sector, the ZMDC is also expected to resuscitate asbestos mines in Zvishavane, which have been taken over by government and placed under its custody.
In the country’s controversial diamond fields, the ZDMC holds 50 percent of the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Mining Corporation, where it is expected to play a critical role in driving revenue into State coffers following many years of mismanagement.
Weak management at ZMDC would therefore mean the country will continue to suffer revenue leakages, while opening avenues for looting by a connected few. Financial Gazette
