The Chiadzwa community has appealed to the Zimbabwean government to halt operations of the Anjin, which is mining diamonds in Marange without conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), according to local news reports.
"Since the coming back of Anjin we conducted policy consultative meeting on human rights and looking at policies in the country, people are demanding that the company addresses legacy issues, rehabilitation of their mining concessions, they destroyed four wells where we fetched water,” Amalgamated Chiadzwa Development Community Trust chairperson Jey Kasakara was quoted by Chat263 as saying.
"Since the coming back of Anjin we conducted policy consultative meeting on human rights and looking at policies in the country, people are demanding that the company addresses legacy issues, rehabilitation of their mining concessions, they destroyed four wells where we fetched water,” Amalgamated Chiadzwa Development Community Trust chairperson Jey Kasakara was quoted by Chat263 as saying.
Image credit: AlexBanner (Pixabay)
He said they tried to facilitate a dialogue with the Chinese-owned company before it commenced its operations, but it only promised to attend to their concerns only to later reneged from this promise.
The Chiadzwa community said that they do not trust the Chinese diamond company to mine responsibly without the EIA being done as it has unaddressed legacy issues.
Meanwhile, Centre for Research and Developent director James Mupfumi said they are concerned that the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) is now playing the role of government which was masking a lot of corruption that led to a lot of revenue losses under the previous regime.
"Transparency and accountability are at risk because there is no policy framework guiding operations in the diamond sector yet ZCDC is already signing joint ventures with partners who are coming in without a clear guideline," he said.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
