D. Bhebhe - Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences - University ...

seasonal jobs). This income support could mean having money to help pay for fees, buy food,
and other necessities. The cost of living in panning areas appeared to be very low. Thus,
panners who are successful in finding gold might have a small cash surplus after meeting
normal living expenses.
2.25 Permit Fees for gold panning
The permit costs to a gold panner in a financial analysis become a benefit to the country under
an economic analysis. Assuming every panning unit obtains an annual $20.00 permit under
the 1991 mining regulations, the total benefit in the province would be approximately
Z$18300 per year. This estimate must be viewed as a maximum since it assumes all panners
are operating legally under the 1991 regulation. Experience has shown this not to be case.
Doubling the number of panners results in permit revenues of Z$37 000.
2.26 Economic Costs
Many of the economic costs are the same as in the financial analysis. Land labour and capital
must be accounted for. The actual costs of the gold panning activities are not known as the
market speculation is very high and the costing of labour and other related costs are not done.
In addition the number of individuals inside and outside gold panning has facilitated the
negotiation of prices and most of the panners want the stock to be marketed as soon as they
produce the ore. Donald Stocking, 1993, in such a case noted that “You don’t buy stock
because it has real value. You buy it because you feel there is always a greater fool down the
street ready to pay more than you paid”. For gold panners it is sad that they don’t even realize
the market prices, and Donald says, “The market will not go up unless it goes up, nor will it
go down unless it goes down, and it will stay the same unless it does either”.
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