JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The mining licence cadastre system of Zambia is reportedly not functioning.

“We understand that the platform they were building to handle the cadastre function, called ZIMIS, has been a failure. Some services are available at https://mmmdui.gsb.gov.zm/services but there’s no cadastre system,” was the comment one mining company to Mining Weekly. The link provided is that of ZamServices Government e-Services Directory, which has sketchy information.

“There is no cadastre portal and there is no information from the Ministry or the cadastre department as to what is happening or what the plan is,” the company added to Mining Weekly, although at the time of going to press, there was no official comment from the Zambian government.

In February, a report in Zambia Mine Safety stated that the Central African country’s Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development was pleased to announce the official launch of the Zambia Integrated Mining Information System, or ZIMIS, which was described as representing a new era of digital innovation in mining licence management, offering stakeholders a seamless and user-friendly platform for all mining-related transactions.

The motivation was that data privacy laws required the in-country hosting of the mining cadastre and it was stated that in preparation for this transition, the then cadastre system, the Trimble Landfolio System, would be closed.

While reportedly not working last week, it was noticed this week that the Spatial Dimension platform for Zambia had been taken offline and a screenshot of the notice posted by Spatial Dimension stated: “After almost two decades of supporting the Zambian mining cadastre, Spatial Dimension no longer has the contractual ability to provide access to the service.”

A subsequent notice was then put out by Spatial Dimension to explain that “This system is not available at the present time. Please contact the Ministry of Mines and Mineral Development for more information.”

At the time of going to press, Mining Weekly had still not received response to an email sent to Spatial Dimension requesting information on the reportedly system failure.