CLAIM:In 2022 about 24,000kg of gold produced by artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM) were declared against an estimated 78,000kg that went undeclared The NewsDay, a privately-owned daily newspaper on 3 June 2024 carried a story on its website under the headline:‘Zim a top 5 gold smuggler.’ In the story, in which a SwissAid report is cited as a source, the publication claims that Zimbabwe is one of the top five African countries reportedly smuggling gold and in 2022 declared about 24,000kg of gold produced by artisanal and small scale miners (ASM) were declared against an estimated 78,000kg that went undeclared According to the 2024 SWISS AID report titled: ‘On The Trail of African Gold: Quantifying production and trade to combat illicit flows,’Zimbabwe is only second to Mali (both at over 50,000kg) in the list of African countries with the highest estimates of non-declared artisanal and small-scale gold production in 2022 Contrary to what the NewsDay claims, the report puts undeclared gold at 54,000 kg, not 78,000
The 78,000kg, according to the report, is the combined declared (24,000kg) and undeclared (54,000) gold produced As quoted in the NewsDay article headline, the report also places Zimbabwe among the top 5 gold smugglers on the continent, with over 50,000kg being smuggled out of the country The SwissAid figures are unsupported by any other publicly available data In the report, SwissAidsaysit got the 55,000kg amount of smuggled gold from the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association estimating that undeclared ASM gold production represents three quarters of total ASM gold production
This was in response to SwissAid survey on 14 December 2023 The claim that Zimbabwe has over 50,000kg undeclared places Zimbabwe’s artisanal and small scale production at almost 80,000kg, which would make Zimbabwe one of the top gold producing countries According to theInternational Trade Administration, the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe reported that gold output reached an all-time high of 37.3 tonnes in 2022, up from 31.5 tonnes in 2021, and projected to increase to 42 tonnes in 2023 Challenges faced by the sector include suspected smuggling, fuel shortages, and antiquated technology
In its2022 annual report, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the country’s sole buyer of gold, through its subsidiary, Fidelity Gold Refiners, also indicates that gold production stood at 31,477.2 kg in 2021 and then went up by 18 percent in 2022 to 37,265.2 Small-scale miners, according to the same report, contributed the bulk of gold deliveries to the central bank between 2020 and 2022 TheWorld Gold Councilreports that Zimbabwe in 2022 had gold production of 49.4 tonnes coming 8th in Africa South Africa in comparison had 92.6 tonnes.
Source: Factcheckzw
