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Speaking ahead of the country's third International Mining Indaba to be held in the capital from September 14 to 16, Spencer Kahwai, chairman of the University of Zimbabwe's Institute of Mining Research (IMR), said a shortage of skills in critical areas like metallurgy and geology was hampering the expected contribution of the industry to the national coffers.

"The country must invest heavily in human capital by invoking a couple of strategies to capacitate tertiary institutions as well as provide incentives for mining companies to train and retain skilled staff," he added.

Zimbabwe, rich in mineral resources and one of the leading producers of metals such as platinum, chrome, gold, as well as coal and diamonds, had a mining sector that was projected to grow by 44% this year and anchor the country's 9.3% economic growth, "but this may all come to naught if we do not address skills shortages", Kahwai said.

He added that the country had to "assist tertiary institutions such as the University of Zimbabwe's mining-related departments - namely, mining and metallurgy, mechanical, electrical and civil engineering, geology, the IMR, the Zimbabwe School of Mines, as well as polytechnics."

Government had recognised and identified mining as the key driver to the economic take-off on the back of rising demand and metal prices on the international market. With large mining houses from China, India, and Russia joining traditional giants from traditional economies of Western Europe and SA, the pursuit of the country's mineral resources was on.

According to the Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines, in order to fill the skills shortage plaguing the sector, mining companies had to reduce their demand on skills of professionals through better use of technology, automation and ICTs.

A spokesman at the Zimbabwe School of Mines (ZSM) highlighted to BusinessLIVE the considerable challenges facing the mining industry.

"In an effort to remain competitive and relevant to the mining industry the ZSM continues to benchmark itself against other organisations and relationships have been developed with the following: Sekhukhune FET College of SA; Moatise School of Mines (Mozambique); Hailebury School (Canada); as well as the Mineral Resource Institute of Tanzania among others.

"We could quite possibly see the number of mines increasing but without skills it's a useless exercise," he added.

In the last decade the country went through harsh economic challenges that led to the closure of mining and manufacturing industries, bringing about massive unemployment and a huge brain drain that left these sectors on the brink of collapse. 

"The ZSM is mapping out strategies to train and retain qualified staff like metallurgists and geologists. But government has to resuscitate training facilities  at mining companies like Zimasco (chrome), NewZim Steel (formerly Ziscosteel, iron), Zimplats (platinum), and Hwange (coal)," said the spokesman. 

In addition, Zimbabwe Human Capital had been put in place to help advertise the urgently needed skills in critical areas of industry.

With skills capacity at 44% and the skills gap at about 5,000 and due to rapid turnover of staff, some were inexperienced and required additional training.

The institution, made up of experts from various spheres of the industry, had been set up to advise the mining ministry on policy matters, along with short- to long-term planning.

"All mines are affected and so are all skills areas. However, geologists are the worst affected as the geology department at the University of Zimbabwe is only producing graduates once in three years due to staff shortages," he added.

The perceived political and economic risk with regards to indigenisation policy only clouded the country's outlook, he said.

"We need to come clean to make sure we make our policies clear and attract our skills back from the diaspora."

By Special correspondent