Online Reporter
Patrick Chitumba, [email protected]
THE dusty roads of Mberengwa District in Midlands Province tell a bleak story — a community trapped between mineral wealth and deepening poverty.
For villagers such as Ms Mpho Chengetai, 43, and Mr Tendai Mukwambo, 60, the relentless procession of heavy trucks ferrying lithium from Sandawana Mine is a daily reminder of their exclusion. The convoys thunder past with loads of raw lithium, leaving behind ruined roads, collapsed bridges and gaping pits that scar the landscape.
For residents, the wealth passing through their villages has brought no schools, no clinics and no employment opportunities.
“The trucks come and go, but we’re left with nothing. Our roads are bad, our environment is destroyed, and our future is uncertain,” Ms Chengetai said, frustration etched in her voice.
Beside her, Mr Mukwambo shared the same despair.
“Our children will only know these pits. What’s the benefit?”
The lithium boom has stripped villagers of pastures and grazing land as mining activity expands. Families now depend on boreholes for water as rivers run dry.
“Our livestock are suffering, our crops are withering, and our rivers are dying,” said Mr Mukwambo.
Where grass once thrived, barren soil now stretches for kilometres, cleared to make way for exploration works. Many households are battling to survive.
“What’s the point of having minerals if we’re going to suffer?” another villager asked, his anger rising. “We need our land, our water, and our livelihoods back.”
The situation exposes the darker side of Mberengwa’s mineral surge: as lithium fortunes grow, local communities bear the cost — environmental destruction, dwindling water resources and no meaningful benefit. However, a glimmer of optimism emerged following Government’s blanket suspension of raw lithium and mineral ore exports.
“Maybe now, we’ll benefit,” Ms Chengetai said cautiously.
The ban has been welcomed by villagers who have long felt sidelined by the lithium rush. Whether it will bring tangible development remains to be seen, but for now, hope persists in fragile form.
Government has confirmed that its sweeping suspension on raw mineral ore and lithium concentrate exports is aimed squarely at sophisticated smuggling syndicates that have been siphoning national wealth by misdeclaring high value ore as low grade material.
Authorities noted that smugglers had been taking advantage of loopholes that allowed truckloads of multi mineral ore to pass through border posts disguised as a single, lightly regulated mineral — evading taxes and hiding valuable by products destined for foreign markets.
Ministry of Mines and Mining Development Permanent Secretary Mr Pfungwa Kunaka said: “Our ores are multi-mineral in nature and bear more than one element. Therefore, the suspension will enable us on a whole-of-Government basis to ensure our policies and measures are complied with, particularly our thrust on value addition and beneficiation of our minerals.”
He explained that a shipment declared merely as “lithium ore” could in reality contain tantalum, tin or rare earth elements — all of which the country was losing without compensation.
“The statement made it clear that export processing of all materials including those in transit was suspended, as long as it had not left our borders when the statement was made. This affected lithium and other minerals. Where there was lack of clarity, the ministry followed up to clarify,” Mr Kunaka said.
Government maintains that beneficiation — crushing, milling and chemical separation — will finally allow Zimbabwe to quantify, tax and sell each mineral at its proper value.
Mines and Mining Development Minister Dr Polite Kambamura directed Zimra and the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) to block all shipments without valid permits, insisting the era of unregulated exports was over.
“Government expects cooperation of the mining industry on this measure which has been taken in the national interest,” said Dr Kambamura.
Only companies with valid mining titles and operational beneficiation plants will be allowed to export. Middlemen and third party traders are now shut out entirely.
Every exporter must obtain a recommendation letter from the provincial mines office confirming compliance and must have each consignment tested to determine full mineral composition.
The suspension follows a government investigation triggered by the discovery of massive stockpiles of Zimbabwean ore at the Port of Beira in Mozambique in January, raising alarm over organised smuggling.
With over US$1 billion already invested in lithium processing plants — some nearing completion — Government says raw exports must end.
During a recent tour of mining operations in Zvishavane, Vice President Dr Constantino Chiwenga urged mining companies to ensure that communities benefit and future generations are not short-changed.
“They will ask about those pits and we will tell them it was a lithium mine,” he said while inspecting Sandawana Mine. “They will ask what we benefitted, and if there is nothing to show, it will be a shame on us. If we do not leave anything for future generations, they will spit on our graves. Let us leave a legacy that will be respected.”
Dr Chiwenga said villagers had suffered destroyed roads, pollution and social disruption while receiving no meaningful benefit.
“We want rural industrialisation and the growth of our nation. Mining companies have a social responsibility to invest in local communities, which includes healthcare, education, and infrastructure development,” he said.
“We want to live to see the day when there will be tall buildings in Mberengwa and modern infrastructure where we once had pastures and mines.
“We must build cities here in the rural areas.”
President Mnangagwa has repeatedly emphasised that while minerals make up more than 60 percent of exports, exporting them raw denies the country jobs, value and industrialisation potential.
