STAFF WRITER
DINDE villagers on Thursday stood their ground, blocking efforts by government to pursuade them to move from their ancestral land to pave way for a Chinese mining company, Beifer Investments.
Minister of State for Provincial Affairs Richard Moyo failed to convince the disgruntled villagers as they insisted that mining activities in their areas should not proceed.
Initially, Mines minister Winstone Chitando was supposed to meet the villagers alongside Moyo but could not show up.
Villagers openly told Moyo that they were not consulted in the whole process and that they could not leave a place they have called home for decades for various reasons.
“Honourable minister, the Chinese company gained entry in Katambe village with machinery to do a mining project in early December 2019 without consulting the community. Villagers, village heads and the entire community are not feeling very uncomfortable about the move and have this to say.
“The proposed site which the Chinese company wants to construct their plant, houses or to do mining activities in the area is our land. The site is where there is our cultural heritage site as well as community infrastructure. We also have fears around evictions, water and air pollution, cultural dilution as well as loss of grazing fields and fields. Hence the entire community is saying No,” said Barnabas Dube secretary for the Dinde Residents Association.
“As a community, we are worried about the threats to our constitutional rights posed by the project and therefore we have requested for the environmental impact assessment which was done during prospecting. We believe that if that EIA is there, it was acquired clandestinely because we were not consulted as locals,” the villagers told a stunned Moyo.
Moyo however said he will take forward the concerns raised by villagers to Chitando whose ministry is responsible for such matters.
“For now, we will talk to the minister he is the one who knows what should be done. But what I know is that there is nothing to stop the company from exploration, ” he said.
The impasse started in 2019, and recently the matter attracted various stakeholders who have gained interest in it.
