Stakeholders at the Zimbabwe Alternative Mining Indaba held in Bulawayo yesterday said the proposed mining sector reforms must include aspects enshrined in the African Mining Vision that seeks to strengthen transparency.
BY OBEY MANAYITI
The African Mining Vision was agreed on by African Heads of State in 2009, as the continent’s response to tackling the perennial problem of having abundant mineral resources, yet its citizens were living in abject poverty, also known as the resource curse.
Claude Kabemba, the director of Southern Africa Resource Watch, said Zimbabwe should have a vision on how it wants its resources to be utilised before rushing to plunder them.
“The vision must be clearly defined before anything else. For the minerals to be extracted, you need the State and citizens to be determined on that vision. Without that vision, there is no reason to mine because there will be no capacity to implement good governance and enforce it,” he said.
The indaba is convened annually by the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (Zela), Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development and Zimbabwe Council of Churches.
Zela chairperson, Tumai Murombo said minerals must be utilised in a sustainable manner.
“We have given the government the mandate to govern the resources and if we have bad laws and policies, then we will lose out. If we have good policies and good laws without implementation, then we will still lose out. We have a role to stop the plunder of resources that started before independence. That must stop,” he said.
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Stakeholders drawn from Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Zambia and South Africa also expressed concern over environmental pollution by mining companies.
