Mining companies should follow local laws

George Maponga in BIKITA

Foreign mining companies must adhere to the country’s laws and policies to ensure their projects also accrue benefits to indigenous Zimbabweans who are the real owners of the God-given natural resources.

The call was made by the chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Mining Development Cde Remigious Matangira, who is the legislator for Bindura South, during a tour of Bikita Minerals Sinomine on Monday.

Cde Matangira led parliamentarians on a tour of Bikita Minerals where they were taken through the process of extracting lithium ore at the mine’s open-cast operations to the recently commissioned spodumene processing plants where lithium concentrate is produced before being packaged for export.

Government wants lithium mining companies to beneficiate the minerals for the benefit of Zimbabwe. Mining firms were given a March 2024 deadline to submit their refining plans.

Parliamentarians on the tour were told by the Bikita Minerals managing director Mr Xuedong Gong that the plunge of lithium prices on the international market was affecting operations.

Mr Gong cited an unfavourable taxation regime pointing out that royalties and other costs were chewing up to 30 percent of revenue making it difficult to remain viable.

He told the legislators that the discovery of huge deposits of lithium in other countries across the globe such as Mali meant there would be enough supplies of the metal on the international market.

In response Cde Matangira said local lithium miners were supposed to follow Zimbabwean laws and policies.

“If it was Mali or DRC they were (lithium miners) going to do what is done there but they are here, we eat what we kill.

“Lithium miners came to Zimbabwe and they have got to follow what we want in terms of our laws and policies,” he said.

On reports that Bikita Minerals was causing land degradation without a clear reclamation programme and also allegedly polluting water sources of neighbouring communities, the mine said it had drilled more than 36 boreholes to benefit the local community.

Bikita West legislator Cde Daniel Nhatiso Makusha, who is also a member of the committee, revealed that Bikita Minerals had availed diesel and casings for drilling boreholes in some areas.

Chief Marozva, Mr Ishmael Mudhe, called for the amendment and repealing of archaic mining laws that he said were inherited from the colonial government.

He challenged legislators to create new mining laws that do not favour investors but also benefit local communities as minerals were finite resources.

“The challenge to you legislators is that you must amend colonial mining laws that favour investors if our people are to truly benefit,” said Chief Marozva.

Bikita Minerals has said it plans to invest around US$500 million over the next three years to build a lithium sulphate plant, a development that will take the firm closer to manufacturing lithium batteries.