ENVIRONMENTALISTS have challenged government to demand that mining firms should provide eco-friendly rehabilitation budgets before they commence operations.
BY STAFF REPORTER
Addressing stakeholders during a meeting in Mutare yesterday, Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (Zela) legal officer Veronica Zano said government should play a leading role in enforcing laws to protect communities and the environment.
“Government as a shareholder in some of the mining companies should be able to protect people and not abdicate its role for business expediency,” Zano said.
“Communities should demand to see the budget allocations for corporate social responsibility activities against the total net profits in the mining sector. Community is not taken as an important stakeholder by some companies.
“There are adverse impacts from mining and, as such, they should benefit too.
“Community and mining companies should not live as enemies, but there should be a mutual relationship.”
Zano said corporate social responsibility should result in transformation of people’s lives and sustainable systems of production and not equated to mere donations and handouts.
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Most villagers living close to diamond mining sites in Chiadzwa have accused mining firms of contaminating the environment and failing to uplift their livelihoods.
They blamed government for failing to introduce laws that would ensure companies were not only concerned with exploitation of resources, but the support of the communities in which they were operating.
Mutuso Dhliwayo, also from Zela, said social corporate responsibility would be more enforceable under the United Nations guiding principles which provided a global standard of conduct to bridge governance gaps in the absence of sound corporate social responsibility.
Speaking at the same function, Zimbabwe Association of Small-Scale Miners representative Wellington Takavarasha said small-scale miners were struggling to stay afloat and could not readily plough back into the communities they operated from.
