By Natasha Agunda |The Zimbabwean government has threatened to withdraw mining licenses to companies over unpaid fees amounting to USD 11 million (Ksh1.1 billion).
The companies have until April to settle the accumulating fee, failure to which the government says the mining licenses will be revoked.
According to Mining Minister Winston Chitando, the miners owe government an amount totaling to 200 million Zimbabwe dollar in annual fees as of January.30. Chitando had previously accused some companies for holding mining concessions for speculative purposes.
Emmersson Mnagangwa-led government now requires companies with concessions to pay an annual fees that permits them to mine.
Under the Zimbabwean law, companies have to pay a fee to keep their concessions. The money relates to the mining title where the owners or holders have not been observing or are in areas as far as the payment of the title is concerned.
However, the minister concealed the names of the companies but the information minister Monica Mutzvangwa said the companies have been given up to April to pay up.
Despite mining being the biggest foreign exchange commodity in Zimbabwe, they have overtime struggled to come out of the biggest economic slump in decades and this decision by the minister is an attempt to resuscitate the struggling economy.
Zimbabwe holds the second-largest known reserves of platinum and large deposits of lithium, gold and chrome but has over there years struggled to attract new investors who have been fearing power shortages and weather adversities
This comes after the Zimbabwean government announced their mission to embark on plan to raise $12 billion (Ksh1.2 billion) by 2023.
