adminbeen without electricity because the power utility Zesa cut them off, as woes for the troubled mine mount.
At the moment, only the mining plant and offices are being serviced with electricity as the chrysotile (generally referred to asbestos) producer wallows in limbo.
With zero production for the past two years, the only activity here is care and maintenance with a handful of workers being committed to the job.
The situation cannot be graver as one part of the mine has been submerged in water after it was flooded following a cut in electricity supply which meant that water could not be pumped out.
But Shabanie and Mashava Mines, which has fallen spectacularly from grace as it used to produce a peak of 180 000 tonnes of fibre per year and employed 3 000 people at both Shabanie and Mashava and gave life to Zvishavane, is on the edge.
Is the darkness that the Shabanie areas currently experiencing its final hour before dawn?
Government recently announced that it was taking over the mine, through the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation.
It would also pay workers, it promised.
A verification exercise of the workers and other issues was conducted.
These developments, promising a new era following a drawn-out ownership wrangle for the mine, were received with great excitement in this town that has seen better days.
Former workers trooped back from far and wide, some from South Africa, believing a change of fortunes. Yet nothing has happened so far and workers and officials alike fear a false dawn.
“Nothing has been formally communicated to us regarding the takeover by ZMDC,” said one official who cannot be named for professional reasons.
“We read it in the paper and they came here and did the verification exercise but they (ZMDC) have not given us feedback.
“We do not even have a roadmap and I do not know how I am supposed to be working in the new arrangement,” explained the official.
A worker told The Herald that he did not know what the next step would be.
“I came back from Masvingo when we were recalled,” he started.
“Most of the former workers some of whom were now doing other jobs or working elsewhere and others who had gone to South Africa came back.
“We underwent the verification exercise and were promised pay by the 12th of this month but nothing has happened so far.
“We do not know what to do. Some had left their new jobs but now they are regretting.
“Others came for the verification exercise but decided to keep their new jobs until something happened here. Everyone loves this mine but things are bad,” the Load-Haul-Dump machine operator said.
While officials at the mine, most of them with cars, could be better off in the circumstances, it is the poor mine worker that has borne the brunt of the woes at Shabanie.
A drive around the town, especially the high-density worker residential areas, reveals the grim face of Shabanie. A sleepy and hopeless air hangs over the town.
Without household electricity, small fires outside the old mine houses send equally mournful smoke to the sky.
Pots on these fires are characteristically small much as to point to the contingency as relating to the fire as to the want of food to put on the table that would call for bigger vessels.
Max Shumba has worked here since 1998.
When the company hit bad times, he stuck around, as he still does. His, like many other workers’ stories, is a sad one.
“People here sell firewood and charcoal for a living,” said Shumba.
“Some pan for gold and others are renting out their mine houses so that they get money to feed their families.
“Others have gone to other mines and others are contracted in building,” he said.
But all these people, said he, wanted Shabanie to rise again. He related to the interest that had been excited by the news of the re-opening of the mine.
Other workers spoke of broken marriages as the economic realities became too hard to face; others of hungry children who could not be sent to school and still others of the extended families equally hit.
Fifty-one-year-old Martin Zhou, a carpenter, hopes Shabanie will get back on its feet again.
Although he won’t be among the jubilant returnees to the belly of the mine, he knows the spin-offs of such a happy day.
“Right now business is low because the people do not have the money,” he explained.
“If they had money business would be good.
“Right now I am forced to give on credit and some pay and others don’t.
“Sometimes somebody approaches you with little money and offers to pay in parts; I might not want it but I’m forced to take that money, however little because I also need it,” said the carpenter.
He added that he sent some money to his family in Mberengwa.
On a “good” month he nets US$200.
Things could be better.
It remains to be seen whether the new dispensation of ZMDC will yield results for the troubled Shabanie.
One observer fears the task will be challenging, saying it is like a python trying to swallow an elephant.
Will Shabanie reclaim the bragging rights of Zvishavane?
A platinum mining company here has taken the town by storm.
From the spanking new houses that make the “Platinum Park” suburb, to dominating signage in the town and buses that roam the streets, to the football team that is doing well in the country’s Premier Soccer League, the new mine is showing just what better days could be.
But then asbestos is not platinum.
Online Reporter