DEVELOPMENT Bank of Zambia (DBZ) board chairman Noel Nkoma has welcomed plans to reopen the Kasenseli gold mine and has proposed that the commodity be traded using local commercial banks.

Mines and Minerals Development Minister Paul Kabuswe recently revealed that government would soon announce the reopening of the Kasenseli Gold Mine in Mwinilunga district.

In an interview, Tuesday, Nkoma said the mine was important especially for small-scale miners, but insisted that a primary market should be provided for the said miners through commercial banks.

“Kasenseli gold mine is very important more especially for small-scale miners but they need to be managed in such a way that you provide what you call a primary market for them. And this can be done through engaging commercial banks with a footprint in areas where there is gold mining taking place where the small-scale miners are trained to be able to trade the gold or sell their gold to an established dealer, but through the commercial bank. So to me, these are some of the interventions that we need to make to be able to make it useful and create an opportunity to create wealth for our small-scale miners,” said Nkoma.

“Because if a small-scale miner is shortchanged on their labour and sweat, then you are basically confining them to poverty. But if you are able to provide a proper restructured market where the commercial banks participate by way of being the ones through their dealers, buy the commodity right in the branch of the bank then in that way you can be able to re-capacitate them in terms of equipment, in terms of machinery, in terms of knowledge, in terms of skills. Because they know that their trade or their industry has become recognised and well regulated by the authorities working with the private sector.”