Mimosa spends US$3m annually on CSR projects

BY MTHANDAZO NYONI

PLATINUM miner, Mimosa Mining Company, is spending US$3 million annually on infrastructural and community-based projects in the country as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR), an official has said.

The company’s general manager, Alex Mushonhiwa, told Southern Eye on the sidelines of the tour by Parliamentary Committee on Mines and Energy this week that the Zvishavane-based mining concern was committed to developing local communities.

“Basically, our corporate social responsibility is guided by our company policy, which really looks at infrastructure as a main area. It also looks at education, health, and sustainable projects. Over the years, I don’t have the specific figures, but we have on average pumped in US$3 million. That’s the budget we have put aside every year for projects,” Mushonhiwa said.

“And how then do we arrive at the projects? We look at the national projects by engaging the government and seeing areas of need in terms of national need. That is in terms of education, health, water and all those infrastructural issues.”

Mushonhiwa said they had done a lot of work at Mpilo Central Hospital, Harare Central Hospital, Masvingo General Hospital, Zvishavane District Hospital and Chitungwiza General Hospital.

In education, they took their CSR initiative to the University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe School of Mines, Great Zimbabwe University as well as Midlands State University “to try and make sure that the quality of graduates that come out there are of the right quality, because those are the same graduates that we absorb in our work streams”.

“At a local level, we look at projects that will uplift and sustain the community. At the moment, we are doing a lot of boreholes and community gardens that will ensure that there is good nutrition for the communities. So, those are the sort of infrastructural and community-based projects that we do as a company,” he said.

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The company’s CSR programmes started to take a strategic perspective in the 1990s, substantially contributing to community development.

It values community engagement in its approach to CSR and holds liaison meetings on a quarterly basis in order to enable community leaders to take the lead in defining CSR initiatives that respond to their priorities.