Miner, farmer clash over ‘death pits’
EXTENSIVE environmental degradation has been detected at Eskbank Farm — 20km outside Harare — where a group of Chinese and local businesspersons are mining gold, leaving pits and trenches which have become a death trap to farm workers and livestock.
The excavation also poses serious threats to the integrity of the Harare-Bindura Road as underground trenches cut across the busy highway.
Environmental Management Agency Mashonaland Central provincial head Mr Robert Rwafa said: “Our team is visiting the area and investigate, we will then discuss further afterwards.”
This paper also understands that the Mines and Mining Development Ministry has made the area a restricted zone where mining activities are banned. Some of the reasons given for the ban include Harare’s urban expansion, which is likely to cover part of the area being mined.
A Mines Ministry official who preferred anonymity said mining inspectors and surveyors were also investigating, adding they had received reports of clashes between farmers and miners.
The Sunday Mail visited Lot 6 of Eskbank Farm on Wednesday where several holes and trenches scar the land.
Farm manager Mr Bevern Chihoboya claimed, “Some of our workers have been trapped and injured in the pits,” adding that cattle had also been lost to the holes.
Mining is ongoing at two adjacent farms.
Mr Chihoboya said, “EMA must intervene and stop the wanton destruction of the environment. This area is for farming and we don’t understand how these guys got mining claims on a farm.”
Farm owner Mr Edison Kadzombe has approached the courts to seek an eviction order against Chemaden Resources Private Limited. The protracted legal battle has seen letters fly- ing between the two sides’ lawyers. The company, represented by Karuwa and Associates, wrote to Mr Kadzombe’s lawyers — Antonio and Dzvetero Legal Practitioners — on September 4, 2015 saying they would not cover pits created by mining activities covered by Cosmos 18 claim as issued by the Mines Ministry.
In a letter copied to Secretary for Lands Ambassador Grace Tsitsi Mutandiri, Secretary for Mines and Mining Development Professor Francis Gudyanga, and Secretary for Environment Mr Prince Mupazviriho, Kurawa and Associates said: “Our client wishes for a spirit of good neighbourliness to prevail between the parties, and we place on record the fact that the pits complained of by your client do not fall on his plot at all, and further, they are mostly active pits from which he is extracting ore.”
In his founding affidavit filed at the High Court on September 4, 2015, Mr Kadzombe said he was allocated the area as proved by an offer letter for Lot 6 of Eskbank Farm in Mazowe District, issued on March 8, 2013 by the Lands Ministry.
“Further to that the representatives and/or agents of the 1st Respondent (Chemaden Resources) have been digging open pits and trenches on the land in question. To this extent they have even blocked a borehole, using stones, that supplies the farm with water for daily use.
“The (Chemaden Resource) guards burnt the land in question and commenced pegging it allegedly in preparation for mining activities. Their indiscriminate burning of the land jeopardised the life of one tractor driver who escaped fate with the tractor sustaining some damages,” reads part of the affidavit.
Contractors are asking for US$69 000 to fill up the pits and trenches.
Chemaden Resources official Mr Walter Muwoni declined to comment saying he would “give a story at an appropriate time”.