Chronicle Editor
Lumbidzani Dima, Chronicle Reporter
SAND poachers are invading homesteads in Methodist Village, on the outskirts of Bulawayo, just after Pumula suburb causing damage to villagers’ homes.
The sand poachers have been causing havoc in the area and recently they damaged the main water pipe leaving villagers without water for a week.
According to recent council minutes, the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is struggling to address the problem as it only has one car and five rangers instead of the required 74 to deal with the problem.
A villager, Ms Sinini Dlamini had her hut destroyed due to activities of the sand poachers.
She said some of the poachers are known people living around the village.
Ms Dlamini said the sand poachers had been coming closer to her home, clearing the land, digging pits and taking out the sand.
A Chronicle news crew observed deep pits and gullies stretching from homestead to homestead.
Ms Dlamini said the sand poachers threaten them when they ask why they are digging pits closer to their houses.
“They usually dig at night and sometimes during the day. We just watch them do their thing because when we approach them and tell them to stop, they shout at us and threaten us,” said Ms Dlamini.
Ward 17 Councillor Sikhululekile Moyo said the sand poachers only think of making money and do not care about the damage they are causing.
“The problem that we are facing is that the sand poachers are the children from that very area. They’ve been poaching sand and selling it until the situation has reached this far,” said Clr Moyo.
Clr Moyo said they made an effort to fill some of the dangerous pits but the sand poachers dig them again.
“There are pits all over Pumula and in Bulawayo as a whole due to sand poaching. Nowadays they even dig pits where we had made an effort of closing the pits after children died in them. This shows that they don’t care about people’s lives. What they care about is getting some money,” said Clr Moyo.
Environmental Management Agency (EMA) environmental education and publicity manager Ms Amkela Sidange said they had been notified of the destruction of infrastructure linked to sand poaching.
She said regulations on the issues of sand are very clear and local authorities are mandated to identify areas where sand abstraction can be done in a regulated manner.
Ms Sidange said this ensures monitoring of the activity so that there is no harm to the environment and safety of the public is not compromised.
She said EMA in line with NDS1 is in the process of rehabilitating areas that were degraded.
“Through implementing principles of NDS1, EMA has been able to cause for rehabilitation of areas that were degraded through sand abstraction across the country, and in the third quarter of this year, close to 290 hectares of land were rehabilitated and the rehabilitation is still on course,” said Ms Sidange.
She urged members of the public to buy sand from registered companies.
“We encourage the public to always buy sand from registered companies and for those that want sand to also extract sand from registered points so that we are able to ensure that the commodity is extracted in a manner that is regulated, thus protecting the environment and safety and health of the public,” said Ms Sidange.
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