Kimberley's illegal miners to get mining permits

JOHANNESBURG – Hundreds of artisanal and illegal miners in Kimberley in the Northern Cape will on Thursday receive mining permits from the Department of Mineral Resources. 

Deputy minister of mineral resources Godfrey Oliphant will hand over two mining permits to artisanal miners, also known as Zama Zamas, in Kimberley. 

The artisanal miners successfully negotiated a Tailings Mining Resource, a mine dump, from Ekapa Mining and now have access to 500 ha of ground to mine for themselves.

Earlier this year at the Mining Indaba, the department committed to formalising artisanal mining in Kimberley after years of illegally mining of diamonds.