Zim’s mining resources require transparency and accountability

📅 Published: August 16, 2025

📰 Source: thestandard

Curated by AllZimNews.com

This has affected the communities’ long-term economic sustainability as well as their socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental rights.

Mashonaland East is home to a number of mining companies that extract natural stones in the form of black granite and quarry stones.

The form and method of this extraction has given rise to a number of human rights violations, including forced evictions, forcible land grabs and relocations without compensation, environmental degradation, and violations of labour rights.

Without engaging impacted people, the government has continued to allocate land for mining and commercial developments.

According to various local news outlets in 2022, some 50 households in Nyamakope village, Mutoko district, said a Chinese mining company told them they would have to evacuate their homes and land because the company had been granted a mining licence by the government.

Some families are said to have received US$2500 in compensation, which is deemed meager because it does not allow them to acquire new housing and does not take into account their link with their ancestral land.

Zimbabwe has the greatest lithium resources in Africa, according to the African Mining Market, and the country will become one of the world’s largest lithium exporters as global demand for rechargeable batteries grows.

The country ranks high among the world’s main lithium producing and supplying countries, following Chile, Australia, China, Argentina, and Brazil.

The government says when its known lithium resources are fully exploited, the country would meet 20% of global demand for lithium.

It said four large lithium projects were now under development.

In a report, Zimcodd said the government was failing to develop areas where natural resources were exploited, citing the Goromonzi district east of Harare, where President Emmerson Mnangagwa commissioned a lithium plant.

Lithium is a critical component in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries, which power a wide-range of modern products, electric cars, and renewable energy sources. “Natural resources are supposed to benefit everyone in the communities from where they are being extracted and be a source of revenue that improves the public service delivery for everyone. “This, however, has not been the case in Zimbabwe, namely in the Goromonzi district,” Zimcodd added. 🔗

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