Where Zimbabwe’s Mining Regulations Stood — And Why Change Was Needed

To appreciate what the government has done in May 2026, it helps to first understand the regulatory landscape it inherited and has now moved to modernise. These are reforms born from a genuine recognition that the old system, however well-intentioned in parts, had grown complex in ways that made life harder than necessary — especially for ordinary Zimbabweans wanting to participate in the mining sector.

Zimbabwe’s mining sector had, over many years, accumulated a layered regulatory structure. The Mines and Minerals Act — the foundational law — had its roots in an earlier era and had not kept pace with the growth of the sector or with the ambition of the government’s $12 billion mining economy target. Permits had multiplied across different authorities. A miner could find themselves navigating approvals from the central government, the Rural District Council, and the Environmental Management Agency — each with its own requirements, timelines, and fees — for what was essentially the same activity.

This was not a system designed to exclude people. But in practice, its complexity meant that larger, well-resourced operations found it easier to manage than smaller ones. An artisanal miner, a small cooperative, or a rural woman with a gold claim faced more proportional difficulty than a large company with a dedicated legal team. The government has now recognised this and acted — and that recognition itself is significant.

It is important to note that the government did not discard everything. Over 80% of existing fees were reviewed, found to be reasonable, and kept at their current levels. What changed is the removal of duplication, the standardisation of the most unequal variations, and the introduction of the principle that the size and capacity of your operation should shape what you pay. That is a meaningful and practical shift — and one that took sustained advocacy from the Zimbabwe Miners Federation and others to bring about.

Coal as “Special Critical Mineral”: What This Actually Means

The reclassification of coal as a “special critical mineral” is a decision that will quietly reshape Zimbabwe’s energy and investment landscape for the next decade. It sounds technical. It is not. It is a statement of sovereign economic philosophy.

Under the existing Mines and Minerals Act, coal, oil, and gas already required a special Presidential grant for exploration and extraction — making them structurally distinct from other minerals. Reclassifying coal as a “special critical mineral” goes further. It places coal inside the same strategic framework as lithium, rare earths, and platinum group metals: resources that the state intends to manage with direct oversight, and from which it intends to capture a greater share of value before export.

The context is not difficult to understand. Zimbabwe is sitting on proven coal reserves of 553 million short tons, with geological estimates stretching to 30 billion tons — enough for generations. At the same time, the country faces a chronic power deficit that directly hampers economic growth. The numbers below make the scale of the problem plain.

The Kariba Dam, once the backbone of Zimbabwe’s electricity supply at 1,050 MW capacity, operated at a catastrophic 185 MW in early 2026 due to the worst drought in four decades, which dropped Lake Kariba’s water level below 3% of capacity. This is not merely an inconvenience. This is an existential threat to every mining company, every manufacturer, every small business that runs on electricity — and indirectly, it is a threat to the wages, jobs, and futures of every Zimbabwean who depends on those sectors.

In that context, reclassifying coal as a strategic mineral is a pragmatic bet: Zimbabwe cannot afford to let climate instability knock out its power supply every dry season. Coal, for all its global political controversies, provides dispatchable baseload power that does not depend on rainfall. The government is not abandoning environmental commitments; it is making the calculation that an economy that cannot power a mine, a hospital, or a factory is not an economy in any meaningful sense.

Kariba Dam: Rehabilitation, Investment, and the People It Forgot

The Kariba Dam Rehabilitation Project (KDRP) is now 94% complete, according to the Zambezi River Authority, and remains on track for final completion by the end of the fourth quarter of 2026. The remaining work — refurbishment of the six spillway sluice gates, whose concrete had expanded over six decades making them increasingly unreliable — is being carried out by GE Hydro France in association with Freyssinet International.

The $294 million project is co-funded by the African Development Bank, the World Bank, the European Union, the Swedish development agency SIDA, and counterpart funding from both Zimbabwe and Zambia. The dam’s collapse would result in over 500,000 fatalities, affect nearly three million people, and cause economic damage exceeding $20 billion across four countries. The rehabilitation is not optional. It is civilisational.

The Debt That Was Never Paid: The BaTonga of Binga

Any honest accounting of the Kariba rehabilitation must include this: the dam was built on the displacement of the BaTonga people, and that displacement remains one of the worst dam-resettlement disasters in African history — in the words of anthropologist Thayer Scudder, who has studied these communities since the late 1950s.

Between 1957 and 1959, approximately 57,000 Tonga people — some estimates suggest far more — were moved from their fertile Zambezi River plains to dry, rocky, tsetse-infested upland plateaus in what is now Binga District. On the Zimbabwean side, no monetary compensation was paid. The government invested an estimated $100 per person in food during the resettlement period only. The Tonga were promised houses, farming support, fishing access, and a share of the lake. Almost none of it materialised.

More than six decades later, communities less than 20 kilometres from Lake Kariba’s shore have no running water and no electricity. The lake that generates power for mines, factories, and cities was built on their land, with their displacement, at the cost of their livelihoods. And they do not share in a single kilowatt of its output.

The $4 Billion Question: Who Is This Investment For?

The government is actively courting $4 billion in investment to end chronic electricity shortages. This includes the $455 million Jindal concession to rehabilitate six aging Hwange thermal units, a 600 MW floating solar plant on Lake Kariba, the Batoka Gorge hydropower project (Zimbabwe and Zambia have pledged a combined $440 million, targeting 1,200 MW each), and the opening of generation and distribution to independent power producers.

This is the right direction. But investment in energy infrastructure, historically, has not automatically translated to affordable electricity for ordinary Zimbabweans. Tariff structures, transmission reach, and last-mile connectivity all determine whether the lights of a new power plant reach a clinic in Binga or only a lithium processing plant in Harare.

Social Licence: The Invisible Asset Zimbabwe’s Miners Are Undervaluing

“Social licence to operate” describes something straightforward: when communities near a mine feel that the arrangement around them is fair — that they are informed, consulted, and benefit in some way — they support the operation. When that sense of fairness is absent, it creates friction that is costly for everyone, including the mine, the investor, and the government whose revenues depend on production continuing.

Zimbabwe has valuable experience to draw on here. In areas where mining operations have worked closely with local communities — providing employment, contributing to local infrastructure, and keeping channels of communication open — those operations have tended to run more smoothly and sustainably. The lesson from this experience, and from comparable situations across the region, is that community inclusion is not just the right thing to do: it is the economically sensible thing to do.

The Mines and Minerals Bill 2025 moves in exactly this direction. It formally designates certain minerals as “strategic,” requiring miners to negotiate special agreements with the state before extraction begins. It also requires miners to notify landholders and obtain their consent before prospecting on sensitive land — homesteads, cultivation areas, and sacred sites. Farmers gain the right to continue cultivating the surface of mining locations under approved arrangements. These are protections that give communities a recognised role in decisions that affect their land and lives.

What This Means For You

Economic journalism is not useful unless it lands somewhere practical. Here is what the regulatory changes, the coal reclassification, and the energy investment pipeline may mean specifically for different groups of Zimbabweans.

The Next Steps: Where the Work Continues

The government’s May 2026 reforms are a meaningful foundation. Like any significant regulatory change, their full value will be realised through implementation over time. For ordinary Zimbabweans — miners, community members, youth, women, and investors — understanding what comes next is just as important as understanding what has been announced. The points below are not criticisms: they are the natural follow-through questions that any set of reforms opens up, and they are the things worth paying attention to in the months ahead.

Building the Second Great Zimbabwe Together

The original Great Zimbabwe — the stone-walled city of Masvingo, the largest medieval structure in sub-Saharan Africa — was not built by one person or one generation. It was built by a civilisation that organised collective effort around shared resources. Gold moved through its walls on the way to the coast. Communities worked together. Governance and trade were inseparable. It was, for its time, a powerful expression of what Zimbabwean people can build when the conditions are right.

The government’s vision of a Second Great Zimbabwe — a $12 billion mining economy, energy self-sufficiency, and a manufacturing base built on beneficiated minerals — is ambitious in the same spirit. The reforms of May 2026 are a deliberate step in that direction. Cutting mining costs. Standardising levies. Creating a tiered system that makes room for the small miner alongside the large one. Rehabilitating Kariba. Attracting energy investment. These are the kinds of systemic changes that, taken together, signal an economy being intentionally prepared for growth.

What will make these reforms succeed is participation. A digital title registry only works if miners register. A tiered licence fee only helps if small operators know about it and use it. A new Mines and Minerals Act only protects communities if communities understand its provisions. Energy investment only reaches households if the grid is extended to reach them. The government has opened the doors. Miners, communities, traditional leaders, investors, and young Zimbabweans are the ones who walk through them.

The ground beneath Zimbabwe’s feet has always been rich. With the right regulations, the right participation, and continued reform, the wealth in that ground can build something that lasts — and that everyone who lives above it can see, use, and be proud of.