The govt was pinning its hope of economic revival on a platinum mining boost which is likely never going to happen this year, the Standard reports.
Miners expressed their scepticism over the initiative and said:
The sort of things being thrown around are all smoke and mirrors. It’s not easy to raise capital for all those projects and you have a huge amount of regulatory uncertainty.
According to the same publication most miners are shunning platinum rich Zimbabwe because of all or any of the following reasons.
- Zimbabwe’s failing currency regime that’s caused hyperinflation,
- Chronic shortages of fuel and
- Power shortages
- US sanctions on government officials and companies.
- Zim’s history of changing ownership rule
More: The Standard
What this govt is failing to understand is that policy is the chief culprit of failed business and all expectations of any boom are hinged squarely on it. Platinum companies do not opetate in a vacuum they are equally affected in one way or another by political policy flip-flopping. As I write most chrome smelters in Gweru shut down their furnaces last week. The new Electricity prices have eaten away thier profit margins, they were now seemingly working to line the pockets of Zesa. They are pondering increasing the use of coal and wood..battering the country’s carbon footprint. In the meantime the forex they were earning for the country is being lost from non- production when every penny of forex earned is supposed to count. Thousands of indegenous miners that depend on them are at risk. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing