Locals slam govt for turning a blind eye to Chinese miner’s violations

AT the end of November last year President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Sinomine Resource Group chairperson Wang Pingwei walked into a lithium processing plant, construction hats firmly on. With a crowd of policymakers, company workers and press looking on, they hailed the mining group’s US$300 million investment into processing plants. The facilities will process the ore that the company unearths at its Bikita mine and turn it into a higher-value product for export.

“I commend Sinomine Resource Group for taking heed of my government’s call,” Mnangagwa said at the gathering in the southern district of Bikita. Zimbabwe has banned exports of raw lithium, requiring companies to develop domestic processing facilities and increase local jobs. The country is now calling on other companies to copy Sinomine’s footsteps, pushing forward a building boom by Chinese mining companies.

“This has contributed to the realisation of our target of attaining a US$12 billion mining economy by year end,” Mnangagwa said.

The sentiment was understandable for the 81-year-old president. Zimbabwe has been cut off from global financiers over failure to service its debts. The country was also hit by sanctions and embargoes by the European Union, United Kingdom and the United States over serious human rights violations. For the past two decades, it has turned to China, adopting what the government terms a “Look East Policy.” In 2020, Mnangagwa described the Asian giant as “our all-weather friends.”

But many workers and villagers in Bikita and Gutu districts are not feeling very friendly toward either Sinomine or the Zimbabwean government. They accuse both of sidelining environmental and social standards for lucrative lithium projects.

“There are many challenges with the current hype about energy transition. It is not about us,” said Farai Maguwu, the founding director of the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG), an organisation working on improved management of Zimbabwe’s natural wealth. While the mine produces lithium for green technologies abroad, locals have little electricity.

The Southern African country has the continent’s largest lithium reserves and sees potential for an economic boost from the critical mineral. Lithium mining and processing is the country’s fastest-growing industry, with companies from China as the largest share of investors. And the Bikita mine, at the centre of it all, is the largest lithium mine in the country, generating US$500 million in exports in 2023.

A series of displacements, spills, labour abuses, a death, and little action by the authorities have left workers, locals and experts accusing the government of failing to enforce its own laws and letting bad mining practices run loose.

Rebecca Ray, a senior academic researcher with Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, who has studied similar Chinese investments in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, said there needs to be improvement in how environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards are applied in practice.

“The Sinomine situation is a large, critical example of a phenomenon that we have studied across the world. China’s Green Belt and Road Initiative and Green Finance Guidelines [warn] investors and contractors to meet host country standards or international environmental and social standards, whichever is more stringent,” she told Mongabay.

“However, in practice, Chinese actors — and the host country governments who regulate their behaviour — have much room to improve in this regard.”

Unknown toxic chemicals

Rindai Makumbe says she regrets the day in 2022 when Sinomine bought the mine.

“They opened roads and cleared space for a road and power lines through our fields. They never consulted us over the issue, and we were surprised to see bulldozers clearing our fields, and sometimes passing near our homes,” said Makumbe, from Makumbe village in Bikita. She is not alone in her disdain for the company’s actions and the government’s lack of attention.

Collins Nikisi, a spokesperson for Bikita Minerals, Sinomine’s local subsidiary, said some villagers reside within the mine’s leased land, but the company has agreed to co-exist with them, “a clear testimony of the good relationships we enjoy.”

He confirmed there were “a few farmers” whose farmland was affected during the construction of the Bikita-Gutu public road. However, the mine reportedly consulted with the villagers, reached and signed a settlement with them, and compensated displaced villagers with money to build new homes last year. Villagers whose homesteads or land were affected by the construction of an extra high-voltage power transmission line are being compensated by ZETDC, the state-owned utility, Nikisi told Mongabay. The company did not share a copy of the agreement for Mongabay to see.

But another villager, Assah Hwenyani, said community members themselves were not consulted, as required by law, and have yet to be compensated. It was only community chiefs who were consulted and compensated. These discussions were not shared with villagers, Hwenyani said.

“We were in the dark only to be told to leave our ancestral land to pave way for the mine. We were neither settled on the mine’s land,” he said.

“They constructed a road and several families were affected as it passed on our premises. We are yet to receive compensation for our displacement.”

Despite the complaints, the government has still not resolved this land conflict. Officials did not or could not respond to Mongabay’s requests for an interview.

Across the meandering Mungezi River, which dissects the arid region of Gutu and Bikita — impoverished districts prone to perennial droughts — Evelyn Mareke said the mine almost killed their source of livelihood. Mareke, who benefits from the nearby Matezva Dam, accuses the mine of polluting the water in October with unknown toxic chemicals.

“We survive on selling farming produce watered from the dam, as well as fishing and doing our laundry. However, the mine polluted the dam, and our crops were affected. It also led to death of fish and aquatic life,” Mareke, from Marinda village, told Mongabay.

“Some of the villagers’ cattle who drink from the dam were also affected.”

Nikisi confirmed the discharge into the dam but denied that it contained toxic chemicals.

“We had a spillage from the water reservoir and our team immediately attended to the problem. The spillage lasted for a few hours … No chemicals spilled into the dam as you allege, and the spillage was not in any way harmful as our tests backed,” Nikisi said. The company did not share its test results for Mongabay to see.

Zimbabwe’s Environmental Management Agency (Ema) said the spillage contained potentially toxic chemicals dumped into the dam, but also refused to disclose the type of chemicals from its test results.