Zimbabwe to tackle gold smuggling by boosting mine surveillance

By Bloomberg News

HARARE: Zimbabwe plans to tackle rampant gold smuggling by increasing surveillance at mining sites, Mines Minister Winston Chitando said Monday.

The country loses $1.5 billion of gold a year to smugglers, depriving it of vital export revenue, according to the International Crisis Group.

Most of its gold is produced by small-scale miners, who at times get paid late by the state’s sole authorized buyer, Fidelity Gold Refinery, forcing some to use other channels.

The government will deploy monitoring teams to mines to ensure all output flows to FGR, a plan that builds on a gold-tracing system announced in May.

Zimbabwe aims to produce 35 tons of the metal this year, up from 30.1 tons in 2023, Chitando told reporters in the capital, Harare.

“The illegal extraction and trade of gold undermines our efforts to achieve these benefits,” the minister said. “The key to realizing this target is the plugging of leakages to side markets.”

In the latest effort to devise a credible national currency, the southern African country in April replaced its dollar with the ZiG, short for Zimbabwe Gold. The ZiG is backed by gold, precious minerals and cash reserves.

“Our currency is anchored on gold,” Chitando said. “Hence the need to ensure that all the gold trade is done through Fidelity Gold Refinery.”

In the first eight months of this year, Zimbabwe produced 21 tons of gold, compared with 19.3 tons a year earlier.