Online Reporter
Sikhulekelani Moyo,Zimpapers Business Hub
Speaker of Parliament, Advocate Jacob Mudenda, has called upon parliamentarians to oversee the extractive industries operated by both local and foreign investors, saying there are laws that must be followed to protect the environment and ensure locals benefit.
He said this while officiating at a two-day capacity-building workshop on budget analysis for Portfolio Committees on Industry and Commerce, Mines and Mining Development, Transport and Infrastructure Development, and Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Bulawayo on Saturday.
Adv Mudenda said the Portfolio Committee on Mines and Mining Development should ensure that mining companies are complying with the law, including the Constitution, and guarantee that communities benefit. He also called for the re-establishment of Community Share Ownership Trusts.
“The laws in Zimbabwe must be enforced, in as much as they are being imposed in our friendly countries like China. We have the Environmental Management Act, the Mines and Minerals Act, as well as the Constitution itself, which says the environment must be respected for future generations,” said Adv Mudenda.
“Any extractive industry must ensure that it is carrying out smart mining, which ensures that we don’t open the earth and leave it like that; it has to be rehabilitated. We need green mining, green infrastructure development, and we want green industrial development in order to save our environment from degradation.
“So, it is important that mining investors from outside the country, including friendly nations such as China, must come in and do their mining according to the laws of the Republic of Zimbabwe. It is the role of Parliament, in terms of exercising its oversight, to ensure that these laws are adhered to for the sake of proper and sustainable mining.”
