Mineral policy in Zimbabwe: its evolution, achievements and challenges

Zimbabwe's economic geology features hydrothermal deposits and therefore, while its mines are generally small, it has several hundred formal operations, Initially the mining law was exceptionally facilitative by African standards, although it has since been rendered more sensitive to other rural interests, At first, too, the colonial administration imposed crippling rents on output but their self-defeating nature led to their abandonment, Three main features of mineral policy have emerged since independence in 1980: (1) state participation in production and supervision of sales; (2) specific regimes for some artisanal mining; (3) ad hoc arrangements for the legal and financial environments of major foreign investors; and (4) the withdrawal of mining-specific tax benefits, Zimbabwe has been seen as a model for other African countries with similar resources but with negligible formal mining sectors, However the trends above are all in the direction of conditions already in place in such countries, (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.