Online Reporter
Nyore Madzianike
Senior Reporter
THE Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage, Ambassador Raphael Tayerera Faranisi, has said no mining or blasting activities should be undertaken at cultural heritage sites anywhere in the country.
He urged communities to report such activities to law enforcement agents and called on traditional leaders to take a proactive role in stopping them.
Ambassador Faranisi said this while giving oral evidence before the joint Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture and Thematic Committee on Culture and Heritage at the New Parliament Building in Mt Hampden.
He was presenting on Government policies, programmes and institutional mechanisms aimed at preserving Zimbabwe’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage and promoting national unity and cultural diversity.
“You cannot mine there,” he said.
Ambassador Faranisi said some foreigners were bent on destroying Zimbabwe’s cultural heritage sites, an act they could not undertake in their parent countries.
He said such people should not be allowed to destroy cultural heritage sites, which he described as the country’s identity.
“Then the other thing also, you cannot do blasting, any blasting, when there are those tunnels (ninga) close by because they will collapse,” he said.
“But, I think it also brings me to another point. We have to embark on a publicity campaign more than we have done and that will also help.
“There are so many complaints. We have got very good investors, our dear friends, but they don’t care. In their countries, they will never do that.
“So, it’s not about the ministry, it is about Honourable Members of Parliament, the traditional community leadership, to say anything that you think, even if it is remote, is damaging our culture. Report to the police. Fortunately, we are in the same Ministry. They will tell us and they will arrest people.”
