Chronicle Editor
The Government has scored yet again, this time with the recent reopening of Kamativi Mine.
Storied as a tin mine, the only one in the country and among the largest in Africa, It shut down in 1994 as tin prices fell globally. With the shafts shuttered, the compound whose well-being revolved around tin, became a ghost settlement. Ex-workers, many of foreign origin, struggled with no income. The lucky and skilled ones moved elsewhere for new jobs and new lives, but the less skilled stayed on in company houses. They waited for their pensions which were delayed by decades. A number passed on and lie buried there.
Happily for the community, we report elsewhere today, a new mine has risen where the old one stood. While the old one worked tin, the new one is extracting and processing lithium, THE mineral of our decarbonising age.
Kamativi Mining Company (KMC), a joint venture between Sichuan Pude Technology Group from China and Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation commissioned a phase one lithium plant which is processing 1 000 tonnes of ore daily with capacity to produce 50 000 tonnes of lithium concentrate yearly. By June, the line would have been expanded to process 6 000 tonnes of ore daily.
The former ghost settlement is now back to life. Its road network is being reworked. A road that connects the mine through Kamativi Police Station has also been tarred. A roundabout to the community hall in the high-density suburb has also been tarred and named after Chief Nekatambe in whose jurisdiction the mine falls.
The business centre in the compound is busy again as some shops have reopened including the traders’ market.
About 300 people have been employed directly by the mining company while more than 1 000 more are working for 14 contractors that KMC has engaged. A new dam is being built to feed the plant and address water challenges in Kamativi. Clearing of land for the first phase of the 88-kilovolt power line from Hwange has started. Some solar-powered boreholes have been installed at two local primary schools.
Multiple times, we have covered the Kamativi story of deprivation since its closure 30 years ago. We cannot imagine the happiness that lithium has ignited there now!
We are enthused by the reopening of the mine and the new life it is breathing not only in the compound and Chief Nekatambe’s area but also Matabeleland North Province and the country as a whole.
Yes, tin was an important mineral, which is why we had the mine.
However, we argue that tin was not as critical a mineral as lithium is now, an on-demand mineral that is pivotal in the manufacture of solar panels, mobile phones and rechargeable batteries for large solar farms, electric vehicles and so on. Lithium is well poised to rule our decarbonising world, to the extent that polluting oil has been over the past century or so.
The last point is enough to capture the bright future that we envisage for Kamativi as well as other lithium mines countrywide and dominant lithium mining countries like ours.
Online Reporter