Cabinet has approved a request from the ministry of mines to embark on a massive crackdown on illegal miners and companies who are opening old disused shafts following catastrophic incidents with the latest one being the Battlefields accident that claimed the lives of 24 people.
This revelation was made by Mines minister Winston Chitando as he responded to journalists at the cabinet post briefing on Tuesday.
“ Government will be announcing next week very detailed measures to enforce the use of disused shafts so that those who own them will act as required by the law. If not then they will be losing the shafts,” said Chitando.
He said stern action will be taken against illegal miners and he described the Battlefields incident as a ‘learning curve in the entire mining sector’
“The nature in which the Battlefields mine flooded is rare and it serves as a learning curve for the entire mining sector,” he said.
Earlier this month, Zim Morning Post authoritatively reported that government will be cracking down on artisanal miners after the Battlefield Cricket mine disaster.
Meanwhile, two of the ‘missing’ artisanal miners in the Battlefields accident were recovered on Thursday in a near decomposing state.
