Mining companies will now be compelled to set up a fund to rehabilitate the environment after exploiting minerals in different mining areas in the country.
By VENERANDA LANGA
This was said by Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa last week while presenting the 2016 National Budget.
Different mining companies have been leaving deep pits and causing siltation of rivers without corrective action being taken to ensure communities enjoyed their environmental rights.
“With regard to the environment, mining houses will be required to establish funds or make other provisions to meet the cost of reversing environmental degradation arising from their mining activities,” he said.
Recently, Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (Zela) director Shamiso Mtisi appeared before the Parliamentary Thematic Committee on Human Rights where he decried serious environmental damage caused by mining companies in Zvishavane and Mutoko, which in some cases caused injury or death to humans and livestock.
“In 2012 the body of a child, Asar Mpofu, was found in the pits, and a man, Fortune Siziba from Zvishavane, is now blind after he fell into a disused mine pit,” Mtisi told the Parliamentary committee.
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In the 2016 budget, Chinamasa said the Mines and Minerals Amendment Bill, which is likely to compel mining companies to rehabilitate the environment after mining activities, had been approved by Cabinet, and would soon be tabled for consideration by Parliament.
However, the Bill had been under consideration by the government since 2007 when it was gazetted, but was never introduced in Parliament.
If it is amended, the Bill seeks to introduce a number of reforms in the mining sector such as restructuring the system of issuing mining rights, and inclusion of environmental impact assessment reports as a requirement before mining rights holders are granted a certificate of inspection and establishment of an environmental rehabilitation fund.
Zela, in its Extractive Industries Policy and Legal Handbook (2011), also recommended that Environmental Courts should be established to handle cases of environmental injustice caused by mining companies to communities.
“In order to ensure that environmental cases are handled professionally and to promote environmental justice, it is proposed that Environmental Courts be set up,” Zela said.
“These would be specialised courts that can be operationalised within the existing court system by making sure that all environmental cases are handled by people with knowledge of environmental justice issues. The current situation where the Judiciary is averse to environmental cases is not desirable,” the handbook read.
