. . .at the 63rd NSSA SHAW Conference, three presentations argued that rules alone have not delivered “zero harm”. One pointed to the brain, one to the boardroom, one to the shop floor.
Tawanda Musarurwa in VICTORIA FALLS
MR SATCHMORE Muchiriri began his address with a trick.
He told a hall of safety professionals to do as he said, not as he did. Nearly everyone copied what he did.
“You can have the best of systems, the best of procedures, the best of everything,” he told them. “But, if you are modelling your behaviour otherwise, otherwise is what people are going to follow.”
Mr Muchiriri, a neurosafety leadership consultant based in South Africa, was among the speakers at the National Social Security Authority’s (NSSA) annual Safety and Health at Work conference.
The figures hanging over the hall explained the urgency.
According to official NSSA data, reported injuries rose about 4 percent to 4 414 in 2025, from 4 242 in 2024.
Fatalities rose 11,4 percent to 78, from 70.
This year looks worse. By June, 2 442 disabling injuries had been reported, up 8 percent from 2 263 in the same period last year. Fatalities rose 30 percent, from 40 to 52, which is already two-thirds of last year’s full-year total.
Zimbabwe has rules, inspectors and training.
The question facing delegates was why people keep dying anyway. The answers came from three directions.
The brain
Mr Muchiriri’s case is that safety is a problem of behaviour that the industry has been treating as a problem of paperwork.
He cited research that more than 90 percent of workplace problems, safety or otherwise, originate with people. “Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice, be it in medicine or in business,” he said.
His evidence was a catalogue of failures despite compliance. Companies with falling injury rates still suffer fatalities. Firms certified to ISO 45001 still bury workers. South Africa’s legislation, he said, is “a Lamborghini”, and still people die. He also noted that safety is the only discipline that judges its systems by an absence, such as six months without a recordable injury.
Production managers, he said, would never accept that logic.
His starkest example was BP’s Gulf of Mexico disaster of 2010. By his account, the rig’s leaders had visited, two weeks before the explosion, to honour a crew for seven years without a recordable injury. 11 men died. BP, he said, paid US$84 billion in settlements.
His remedy is “neuroleadership”: teaching managers how the brain forms decisions, so they can lead workers rather than police them. He wants procedures tested for doability.
At one client, a 10km/hour limit in a car park proved impossible to hold without riding the clutch, and the driver laughed. “We are actually creating a culture of breaking rules,” he said.
The boardroom
Dr Farai Matawa, director of the Environmental Science Institute at the Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Centre (SIRDC), made the financial argument.
His thesis is that environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting can lift safety, health, environment and quality (SHEQ) practice in Zimbabwean industry. Traditional SHEQ looks inward, at operations and regulators.
ESG looks outward, at investors, boards and value chains, with a longer risk horizon.
The pressure is real. Disclosure for listed firms is moving from voluntary to mandatory under Statutory Instrument 134 of 2019 and ZSE Practice Note 16, with a matching note for the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange.
The accounting regulator is phasing in the international sustainability standards, IFRS S1 and S2.
Dr Matawa tested his claim on 74 reports from 37 ZSE-listed companies across two years, and surveyed 33 industrial safety practitioners.
Of the 37 firms, 26 reported a lower total injury frequency rate in 2023, and 29 in 2024. Lost-time injuries fell at 28 firms in 2023 and 31 in 2024.
Work-related fatalities were unchanged at 30 firms in 2023 and 34 in 2024.
Near-miss reporting, a leading indicator, rose at 32 firms in 2023 and 34 in 2024.
In all, 34 of the 37 kept their “zero harm” status between the two years.
The contrast with NSSA’s national figures is striking. Listed companies, which have investors to answer to, report improvement.
The wider economy does not. The data show correlation, not causation, and Dr Matawa did not claim otherwise.
He listed what holds firms back: thin awareness, tight budgets and poor data, which matters because sustainability reports must be audited.
The shop floor
The third presentation showed what a system looks like in practice.
Mr Turkey Liang, chief operating officer of Kamativi Mining Company (KMC), presented a lithium venture in Hwange District. KMC is a joint venture with China’s Sichuan PD Technology Group.
It has US$249 million invested in two processing plants and capacity of 2,3 million tonnes of ore a year. It plans 350 000 tonnes of lithium concentrate annually and employs about 1 000 people directly and indirectly.
KMC’s pitch is rigour about follow-through. Its system rests on 34 policies, six behavioural prohibitions and a rule that safety wins when it conflicts with production.
Every shift begins with a safety talk. Inspections run daily, weekly and monthly. The closing principle appeared in one of his slides: “An observation alone is not a completed action.” Each hazard needs a control, an owner and a deadline, and someone must verify the fix.
Mr Liang urged leaders to track evidence of what works, such as overdue actions and repeat findings, rather than the volume of activity.
In 2026 KMC trained 19 more first aiders and 20 more firefighters.
Three answers, one problem
The speakers disagreed on emphasis.
Mr Muchiriri distrusts systems that outrun the people running them. Mr Liang’s company is building exactly such a system, though its verification emphasis speaks to his critique. Dr Matawa believes investors will pay for safety that can be audited.
They shared a conviction that compliance is the floor.
“We don’t do things because the law says not to do it,” Mr Muchiriri said. “We do things because we are entitled to do it.”
With 52 deaths already recorded by June, delegates will leave with little time to find out which of the three is right.
Ends
