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Mines Minister says government might still ban raw platinum exports – Mines Minister Walter Chidhakwa says the government might still ban the export of raw platinum if mining companies are slow to set up a refinery. Mining companies were given a two-year ultimatum to set up the refinery and it expires at the end of this year. They have committed US$100 million for the refinery but Chidhakwa says this is not enough. “I want to see real action on the ground,” he was quoted by The Herald as saying. Chidhakwa also said he was not informed about the proposed investment which was announced by the companies at the Chamber of Mines annual general meeting last week. Zimbabwe, which has the second largest platinum reserves after South Africa, currently has an upper hand over its more powerful neighbour because of a four-month strike that has crippled platinum mining in South Africa. All three major players in Zimbabwe are South-African based companies. These are Impala Platinum, Anglo-Platinum, the world’s largest platinum mining company, and Aquarius which is registered in Bermuda but has its roots in Australia. Implats has the largest operation in Zimbabwe.

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The Ministry of Agriculture came under fire for ignoring recommendations made by the auditor-general’s office to rectify its accounts and for giving false information to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee that it had addressed concerns raised by the auditor-general when it had not.

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The government was forced to step in to set a fee for private doctors because the doctors and medical aid societies had failed to reach an amicable figure on their own, the Deputy Minister of Health Paul Chimedza said.

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Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa this week said he could not give a timeframe on when the government would regularise salaries for chief executives of state enterprises which it said must be capped at US$6 000 a month, three months ago.

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Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa left legislators in confusion over whether there has been a shift in the indigenisation policy when he insisted that Zimbabweans would own 100 percent of their resources but went on to say “please do not confuse ownership and control”.

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Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa says the government is running a cash budget so it cannot pay salaries of civil servants and Members of Parliament when there is no money.

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The Movement for Democratic Change has described the Production Sharing Model (PSM) announced by the government this week as a damp squib because investors do not base their decisions on explanatory notes. All they want is a clear policy and legal framework.

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