Small scale gold miners are set to receive 100 percent of their deliveries to Fidelity Printers and Refineries in foreign currency as government seek to curb gold leakages into the black market.
Previously, the state was offering small scale producers up to 55 percent of their earnings in foreign currency with the remaining 45 percent paid in local currency at a fixed exchange rate.
This has led to most artisanal miners opting to sell their gold produce on the black market where they get their earnings wholly in foreign currency.
Gold sector players have for a long time been calling on government to review the foreign currency retention policy to at least 75/25 percent in order to ensure producers are able to meet high operational costs in most cases requiring foreign currency.
However due to the foreign currency retention policy, Artisanal miners deliveries to Fidelity dropped 19 percent to 17 tonnes against 22 tonnes delivered in 2018.
