The Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) is tightening inspections at Forbes Border Post to curb mineral leakages and discrepancies in declared cargo weights along a key export route to Mozambique’s port of Beira.
MMCZ Corporate Communications Executive, Pretty Musonza, said the corporation’s mineral resource accounting team is responsible for verifying export documents and checks cargo against exporters’ declarations.
“We have got our mineral resource accounting team that is here to ensure that the trucks that are carrying minerals have all the requisite paperwork so that we can curb leakages,” she said.
MMCZ has previously reported discrepancies between its invoices, Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) deductions and independently verified cargo weights at Forbes, raising concerns over possible mineral leakages and revenue losses.
The corporation also reported intercepting four trucks carrying lithium concentrate without valid export documents at Beitbridge in 2025, while two trucks transporting quartz without proper documentation were intercepted at a Beitbridge truck stop in February 2026.
At Forbes, officers verify whether shipment documents have been authenticated by the relevant authorities and whether the cargo matches the declared mineral.
Musonza said an integrated system for verifying documentation and cargo weights before trucks reach the border would improve efficiency and reduce congestion.
“The ideal situation would be a situation where we’ve got a system that is integrated … so that all the paperwork is verified prior to coming to the border, also the weights are verified prior to coming to the border, so that we avoid the long queues that we’ve seen from town,” she said.
She said the measures were helping deter leakages, with MMCZ having prosecuted several cases. An increase in declarations could also indicate that more exporters were using formal channels.
“I think we are deterring by having these measures in place, we are deterring leakages because we have had quite a few of the cases that we have prosecuted to date,” she said.
However, MMCZ has not disclosed the value of the weight discrepancies, the number of prosecutions or the reported increase in declarations, making it difficult to quantify the impact of the checks.
As Zimbabwe prepares to restrict lithium concentrate exports from January 2027, tighter cargo verification will be critical to curbing mineral leakages, ensuring accurate declarations and protecting revenue.
