MUTARE- Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) has said the latest tragedy to strike the mining sector is exposes lack of adequate disaster and emergency preparedness measures, despite economic hopes pinned on mining.
ZELA said the slow and poorly coordinated search, rescue or recovery efforts of five artisanal miners trapped underground at Task Mine in Chegutu are an indictment for government failure to protect poverty stricken Zimbabweans seeking livelihoods.
Incidentally, this latest disaster follows several others in the last couple of years which have claimed lives of ‘those trying to eke a living as artisanal miners in a quest to fight poverty, unemployment and fend for their families’.
ZELA, a public interest origination pushing for environmental justice through sustainable and equitable utilization of natural resources and environmental protection said as time stretches hopes of finding the five miners, from the same family, alive were fading.
“The accident exposes lack of adequate implementation of disaster and emergency preparedness measures in the mining sector. It appears no one in the mining sector, including Government and the mining industry is learning anything from past mistakes, experiences and disasters.
“We are deeply concerned and saddened by the lethargic and indolent response by the Government in the Chegutu disaster. It is indeed worrisome to note that when such incidences happen, even other victims who might have sustained minor injuries end up losing life due to the authorities’ failure to expeditiously attend to disasters,” said ZELA in statement.
ZELA said the apparent neglect and lack of coordination from government was despite ‘the significant contribution of artisanal and small-scale miners to gold production levels in the country and the national economy” realised in the past years.
Initial reports indicate that the artisanal miners were working in an old underground shaft in a claim belonging to Pickstone Mine, but was being controlled by influential players in the gold sector under a mining cooperative.
The mine claim is also adjacent to a Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC mining block), which has a shaft that might offer access to the mining area, when the mine collapsed on the 8th of September 2020, on the five artisanal miners.
ZELA said over the past weeks it has received several calls and messages from family members and members of the public calling for assistance from the Government, mining companies and other actors to help rescue or at least recover the bodies of the miners.
In the long run ZELA said the most viable solution to curb the occurrence of these mining accidents is formalizing artisanal mining, as it urged artisanal and small-scale miners and their Associations should think of establishing a Disaster and Emergency preparedness Fund to provide support in case of mine accidents for their membership.
Government, corporate actors and other stakeholders, which ZELA said are either buying gold from artisanal miners or organizing them to mine, should also assist in the search, rescue or recovery efforts.
“As an organization we stand with the families of the trapped miners and encourage the Government to dedicate more resources and intensify the search, rescue or recovery efforts. Government should appeal for help from mining companies or organizing artisanal miners to mine on old mine shafts.
“We are also calling on the Government to formalise artisanal mining to enable the massive number of people who have just joined the sector to mine legally and to follow mine safety standards. Formalization in its various forms may enhance adoption of safety, health and environmental standards to curb such mine disasters,” said ZELA.
The Zimbabwe Miners Federation, an association of small scale miners, is on record calling for government to also formalise artisanal miners as a way of mainstreaming Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) practices.
Wellington Takavarasha, ZMF chief executive officer, said the current legal framework was exposed local artisanal miners who are going to mine in disused mines or those under care and maintained through bribery.
He said there solution to the challenges in the sector is formalization to ensure that there is more accountable operations in the sector that can be monitored and compliance can be enforced.
“Clandestine operations are a festering hive of activity for artisanal miners who are invading where of the big miners have declared incapacitation and mining illegally
“They mine in syndicates or under sponsorship and they do not observe Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) principles because of their illegal operations that they will be having,
“Yet these are people who are doing it for a living only in Zimbabwe are artisanal miners being arrested, in other jurisdictions they are called prospectors because it’s a livelihood activity” he said.
“We are pushing for formalization because we are losing to the illegal market, the gold does not go to the formal system, but once they are formalized and regularized they will produce much more.”
