BUREAU VERITAS
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The former of the three focus areas has seen Mabiza construct a 650-pupil capacity school that currently provides both primary and secondary education services, fitted with modern learning aids in the form of tablets that hold the entire primary school curriculum in seven different local languages.
On the healthcare front, the company has also helped to almost eradicate malaria in the local area. Banda reveals: “We are involved in indoor residual spraying for malaria covering a radius of 20 kilometres from the mine where we work together with the Mazabuka District Malaria Task Force to protect over 150,000 people annually, and have built a clinic that tends to an average of over 600 outpatients every month.
“Our agricultural efforts meanwhile are geared towards assisting farmers in adopting conservation methods and linking them with markets for their produce.”
Arguably one of the company’s most substantial social stimulation efforts, however, stems from its work with the Musangu Foundation
– a UK social enterprise initiative created to provide new solutions to industry development, social and environmental issues in mining communities.
“The foundation has been working with mining houses and other
stakeholders to develop livelihood restoration programmes and allow mining areas to be resilient beyond their finite mine life,” Banda explains. “At national level, it has created Impact Capital Africa, a platform that identifies and prepares small and medium enterprises before linking them to impactful investors.”
Active on all fronts, these schemes demonstrate that Mabiza is not only set to have a profound impact on the local community by removing its heavy economic reliance upon agriculture, but equally through the creation of opportunities and improvement of living standards through these wider methods.
“These are mere highlights of what we do in regard to CSR,” adds Banda.
Striking gold
Employment is another area where Mabiza is championing the region’s socioeconomic strives, with 99 percent of the company’s staff being Zambian nationals.
“It’s something that we’re proud of,” Banda states. “Experts only come in to assist in areas that we have identified skills shortages, but otherwise we’re focused on providing local people with abundant opportunities in this sector.”
These opportunities, unsurprisingly, have been snapped up. At the restart of operations, the company attracted both swathes of local and international talent, owed to the firm benchmarking its offerings against global industry standards to ensure that they are competitive.
“It’s a goal of ours at Mabiza to be renowned as an employer of choice, responding to the needs and aspirations of our employees,” Banda affirms. “To facilitate ease and flexibility of work, we have deliberately engaged technically competent personnel at artisan level to work as operators.”
‘Mabiza is not only set to have a profound impact on the local community by removing its heavy economic reliance upon agriculture, but equally through the creation of opportunities and improvement of living standards’
With this capable, sizable team at the helm that is expected to expand to 400 full time workers at full capacity, the GM remains confident that Mabiza will execute its ambitions effectively moving forward.
“Phase one will lead to the production of nickel concentrate and PGM concentrate; phase two will either involve the production of nickel metal on site through electrowinning or beneficiating the material to sulphate depending on the market; and phase three will see expanded exploration works,” Banda reveals.
This won’t be without its challenges, however.
The Zambian mining industry has continued to struggle with stable mining legislation after a series of frequent, sporadic changes made it difficult for investors to plan for future projects.
“This is ultimately beyond our control,” admits Banda, “but we hope the government will heed to our plight that we have highlighted at every opportunity. Stability will provide more confidence, and confidence will allow investment to flow.”
Expressing these concerns both directly to the government and through the Zambia Chamber of Mines, Banda remains both hopeful and optimistic that the horizon remains prosperous with the Munali Nickel Mine in capable hands.
He concludes: “Having gone down twice, the mine has been given one more lease of life that must not be squandered. We have embarked on an exciting journey for the local community, the country and the investors.
“As stakeholders we are confident that we shall achieve a good outcome, but we need to be in a position of applying our various talents in unison in order to win as only the best is good enough.” Mabiza Resources Ltd Tel: +260 213 235 191 gm@mabiza.co.zm www.mabiza.co.zm