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Oliver Kazunga
Senior Business Reporter
SHAMVA Mine, a member of Kuvimba Mining House, has achieved one million fatality-free consecutive shifts and 365 days of operations with no lost time injuries, general manager Engineer Gift Mapakame told a media tour of the mine on Friday.
The mine, which is located about 90km north-east of Harare in Mashonaland Central, is one of Kuvimba’s operations under the gold cluster.
Said Eng Mapakame: “As Shamva Mine, we celebrate one of the most prestigious, safety, health, environment and quality milestones. We have just achieved 365 days of lost-time injury-free operations over the past one year and what makes us more delighted about this accomplishment is that we are still riding on the momentum of achieving one million fatally free consecutive shifts that we attained on December 5.
“So, it essentially shows us that as our vision is to achieve zero harm, which is zero injury to personnel and zero impacts to the environment, it is actually quite possible just by looking at this consecutive achievement that we have actually achieved as a mine.”
Eng Mapakame commended the company’s management for driving the culture of zero harm, adding that despite having systems in place, this does not mean the company had no incidents.
“We have had incidents, we have had impacts to the environment, but the most important thing is that the system compels us to be able to learn from these occurrences and we take time to investigate all the adverse occurrences so that we are able to correct in instances where in our approach or standards have actually missed anything.
“You know, the culture that we have is influenced by the executive and the management team of Shamva Mine has the onus of putting in place the system that disseminates this culture,” he said.
“And I’m also happy to highlight that the employees in general have been able to actually embrace this culture of zero harm and by doing so, have actually enhanced their risk perception and safe work practices,” he said.
Against this background, Shamva has put in a business management system that reflects international standards and best practices and thus the gold producer was certified by the International Organisation for Standardisation.
“We have got three standards that are certified to our system. The first standard being for occupational health, the second standard being for environmental management systems, and the third standard being for quality management.
“So in this business management system, we are then able to take the opportunity to look at our operations or the context of the organisation in order for us to be able to derive the risks that our operation either poses to ourselves as employees and the impact that it poses to the environment,” said Eng Mapakame.
Statistics indicate that at least 237 people were killed in mine accidents that occurred across the country last year, making it one of the worst years in Zimbabwe’s mining industry.
Most of the deaths involved unregistered artisanal miners who often engaged in unsafe mining and were reluctant to follow safety protocols.
Last year’s deaths were an increase from 139 recorded in 2022 from 121 accidents.
In an interview, Shamva Mine safety, health, environment and quality manager Mrs Rumbidzaishe Kamkazingeni said her organisation achieved the latest milestone driven by the management’s commitment to zero harm.
“We achieved this milestone because of management commitment who drove us to implement formal systems — we are certified to three ISO standards for environmental management, occupational health and safety, as well as quality management.
“Through those standards, we managed to implement systems that drive the implementation of safety within our work environment,” she said.
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