Online Reporter
Martin Kadzere
Parliament has called for an independent forensic audit of all outstanding procurement contracts at Dorowa Minerals following revelations of procurement irregularities, governance failures and suspected executive collusion that crippled the country’s sole phosphate producer.
The findings are detailed in a comprehensive report by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce following a recent fact-finding mission to the mine in Buhera.
The parliamentary inquiry sought to understand the fertiliser value chain, explore opportunities for maximising local resource utilisation to substitute imports, identify necessary policy reforms and assess the broader economic and social impacts of domestic production failure.
Some of the companies investigated were mainly State-owned entities including Sable Chemicals, Zimbabwe Phosphate Industries and G&W Industrial, alongside several private operators.
The report reveals that Zimbabwe spent about US$2,1 billion on fertiliser imports between 2018 and 2024, despite sitting on annual production capacity of two million tonnes, more than double its annual demand of 780 000 tonnes, largely as a direct consequence of the upstream collapse at domestic production facilities such as Dorowa Minerals.
According to the committee, internal investigations commissioned by Dorowa’s parent firm, Chemplex Corporation, uncovered severe accountability breakdowns that undermined efforts to rehabilitate the mine before operations were fully suspended in April 2025.
“Investigations commissioned by the Chemplex board uncovered procurement irregularities, conflicts of interest and collusion involving certain former executives and suppliers,” the committee said in its report.
“These findings resulted in management restructuring, disciplinary action and the strengthening of procurement controls.”
A key failure highlighted by lawmakers involved a US$1,4 million payment made to a South African supplier for specialised processing pumps that were never delivered due to contractual disputes, forcing the company to initiate a secondary procurement process.
“Critical equipment remained undelivered despite substantial payments having been made, reflecting severe weaknesses in procurement and contract management,” the committee observed.
Management acknowledged to lawmakers that weaknesses in governance and procurement led to inefficient resource utilisation, with rehabilitation funds misallocated towards non-critical equipment that failed to clear plant bottlenecks.
To address these systemic breakdowns, the committee recommended that the board of Dorowa Minerals should commission an independent forensic audit of all outstanding procurement contracts by December 31 and implement performance-based procurement systems for all future projects.
It further recommended that the Minister of Industry and Commerce ensure the appointment of a fully constituted board by the same date and submit all outstanding governance investigation reports to Parliament.
Dorowa Minerals is designed with an installed capacity to produce 150 000 tonnes of phosphate rock concentrate annually, supporting 430 000 tonnes of basal fertiliser.
Affected by machinery left unrefurbished since 1973, capacity utilisation averaged just 20 percent between 2016 and 2024 before the plant shut down entirely.
The operational collapse forced staff retrenchments, cutting the mine’s workforce from a required 270 employees down to 136.
The company remains constrained by severe liquidity shortages, debt overhangs and US$300 000 owed to State power utility ZESA by the time of the inquiry.
Management estimates that a phased US$20 million rehabilitation programme is required to restore full production.
Dorowa’s paralysis triggered a severe downstream crisis at Zimbabwe Phosphate Industries (ZimPhos), the national chemical conversion hub.
Designed to combine Dorowa’s phosphate rock with sulphuric acid to produce Single Super Phosphate (SSP), ZimPhos saw throughput collapse to 5 percent capacity.
Data analysis indicates that processing 30 000 tonnes of Dorowa concentrate yields 60 000 tonnes of SSP, which generates 75 000 to 80 000 tonnes of finished NPK basal fertiliser when blended.
The dormant upstream processing forces local producers to rely heavily on expensive imported raw materials such as Monoammonium Phosphate (MAP), Diammonium Phosphate (DAP), urea and ammonia for basic blending.
The sector’s footprint is skewed towards blending (1,6 million tonnes capacity) versus granulation and upstream processing (0,4 million tonnes capacity).
Beyond operational breakdowns, the committee attributed industry challenges to capital shortages, procurement lapses and a degraded rail network that forces heavy mineral inputs onto costly road freight.
General manager of the Industrial Development Corporation of Zimbabwe (IDCZ) Mr Edward Tome recently told an industrialisation conference that a new processing facility at Dorowa Minerals will scale output to 3,6 million tonnes annually of varied basal fertilisers and specialised agricultural chemicals.
He said the target output far surpasses Zimbabwe’s national annual basal demand of 400 000 tonnes, positioning the country to export the excess across the region, where demand stands at 3,2 million tonnes.
In addition to the new facility, retooling efforts at Dorowa will enable Zimbabwe to stop importing basal fertiliser entirely before the end of 2027 and transition into a net exporter within two years.
