RESIDENTS RUSH FOR GOLD AT COMMUNITY RIVER

PIGG’S PEAK – Known as a rare metal found underground, the Pigg’s Peak community has discovered a river where they can find the precious and most sought after metal on land.

We are talking about gold. Residents of two small, but densely populated townships in Pigg’s Peak have converged along the banks of the Mangwaneni River to search for soil deposits that contain gold. The river runs between the two townships, it is a tributary for Phophonyane River and has many kinds of alluvial gold deposits, a few kilometres from the notorious and abandoned Pigg’s Peak Gold Mine.

Run

Alluvial gold deposits form over time, where a river runs, or has previously run through ground which is rich in gold according to www.gold-prospecting-wa.com. The erosive power of the water removes the surrounding rock due to its comparative low density, while the heavier gold resists being moved. The gold is in a free state in the alluvial gold deposit and has the obvious specific gravity difference with sand.  The people from the community use the popular gravity separation process, which is an ideal and efficient method to extract gold from placer.  This simply means they take a sieve and dish and start a process of washing the sand particles to separate them from the gold.

The production process for the zama zamas, a common word use for illegal gold miners, mainly includes washing, screening, gravity separation and concentration. One of the illegal miners *Gugu said: “We come in different shifts. It is up to an individual’s manpower. Some come for a few hours; some spend three or four days and nights. On average, depending on your soil and luck, one can make E7 000 during melting,” she said. Asked how they make this E7 000, she narrated that not very far from the river was allegedly a  camp set up by South  Africans who  buy from  them. She said they take the gold deposits to this camp where the buyers use their own melting equipment to melt the gold . The melting of gold process involves heating the gold in a crucible to a high temperature, causing it to melt and separate from any other metals that may be present. The gold is then poured into a mould and allowed to cool, forming a solid bar.

Official

This bar is then analysed to determine its gold purity and value. The current price for gold per gramme is E1 478.16 in the official South African market and E1 478 159.51 per kilogram. There are 35.274 ounces in a kilogramme of gold.  “The South African gold buyers have settled in Pigg’s Peak and buy gold from us  and that makes business very easy ,” said Gugu.  However, when this publication requested to be taken to the buyers, there was a definite ‘no’ from the illegal miners who felt it would compromise their business dealings. Unconfirmed reports  are that the buyers buy for as little as E700 per gram from the zama zamas. “It is difficult to get the buyers as the illegal miners who have been arrested have refused to name or claimed not to know the buyers,” said an investigating officer from Pigg’s Peak Police Post. 

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