Tawanda Homba
BIKITA-Giant lithium miner, Bikita Minerals which has over 600 workers under its employ is set to increase 1 500 more as it ramps up production.
The revelations were made during the first media tour since Chinese owned listed Sinomine took over the miner in January 2022 at US$180m and poured in US$300m to increase production and open new operations.
The media tour was organized by Bikita Minerals public relations consultant, Collins Nikisi yesterday and was meant to familiarize the fourth estate with the operations of the top lithium miner in the country.
Mine planning engineer, Oscar Byron Sithole said there a lot of pegmatite related minerals at Bikita Minerals of which for now they are able to process only petalite which we have the technology.
“The other mineral which we will process soon is Spodumene which has got a plant which we are building and we expect it to be running by July this year and according to the human resources department and the new plant managers it will see an additional 1 5000 workers being added to the company.
‘’So, we also encourage locals to acquire technical courses since they will be employment opportunities at the mine,” said Eng Sithole.
Sithole added that Sinomine is doing exploration work on other related minerals meaning more employment opportunities for a long time to come.
“We are a long –term and generation spanning employer. We are proud to now have people in the third generation working in our team and contributing to our goals.
‘’ As part of the company’s commitment to the wider mining community, the mine takes on a significant number of graduates and students every year for training purposes. These students are attached to various department of the mine and undergo free training and exposure to the mine operations,” said David Mwanza the Mine Manager.
