Zanu PF-linked politicians are allegedly protecting errant miners accused of violating environmental laws in Matabeleland North’s Bubi district in the process disempowering the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) from taking any action.
Zimbabwe is witnessing growing conflicts between mining companies and communities that are being evicted from their ancestral lands without compensation to pave way for mining operations
Communities also accuse the miners of leaving a trail of environmental damage, and polluting their water sources.
Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) director, Farai Maguwu, said this was worsened by indications that most errant miners were protected by Zanu PF politicians and other government officials.
Maguwu said this during a virtual discussion organised by the Bubi community parliament to discuss environmental management and degradation in the district last week.
There were concerns raised during the discussion that the mining firms were destroying the environment.
"The most important piece of legislation when it comes to protecting the environment is the EMA Act of 2002," Maguwu said.
"However, there is political interference where most of the mines you see in Zimbabwe today might be having Chinese names or British names, there are powerful Zimbabwean politicians within those companies; they are silent shareholders.”
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He accused the miners and the government of violating environmental and social standards for lucrative mining projects.
"Because of that, EMA has been rendered redundant, that is why many areas, for example when you drive along Boterekwa today, the environmental degradation you see there does not mean that EMA does not see that and are not concerned, they are very concerned,” he said.
“But when they try to enforce the law they are pushed back by powerful politicians.
“So in the end, an officer who would want to go ahead would risk own life, own job and the like, that is a problem."
Maguwu said the government was not serious when it came to the enforcement of the environmental laws.
"So the mining companies enjoy much impunity, nothing happens to them, but also the government itself is not serious about environmental issues, they have relegated the environmental issues to the periphery of governance," he said.
He said a cabinet statement issued on August 13 banning river bed mining was meaningless as long as it is not backed by any law.
"But if you go back to October 8, 2020 the government again issued a similar statement that the riverbed mining had been banned with immediate effect except in the Save and Angwa rivers," he said.
"But because it was a political statement that was issued in the heat of the moment when we challenged the mining in the Hwange National Park, the whole cabinet had forgotten that they issued a cabinet statement on October 8, 2020 and they announced it as a new decision that was made yet they made the same long back ago."
Maguwu said cabinet pronouncements were meaningless without relative legislation.
