Commutalk Reporter
MBERENGWA: “I am currently living in a makeshift shelter with my family and we have lost property and food after houses at the mine were destroyed three years ago,”Jerifanos Mhofu told CommuTalk News.
With teary eyes, Mhofu said he never anticipated that one day he would be a destitute more than a decade staying at C-Mine compound in Mberengwa North’s ward 36.
According to a local commentator, Takavafira Zhou, the once lucrative gold mine closed in the 1990s after the owners abandoned workers without paying their terminal benefits.
Since then, the employees and their dependants at the mining compound have been suffering and living through various means.
Early in 2021 a new investor, Sutton International Investments composed of local and foreign investors took over the mine and has in successive months been at loggerheads with the ex-workers who are demanding their dues before any takeover of the company is effected.
In September 2021 the workers had to demonstrate against the new investor’s intention to resume operations without a clear position in settling their outstanding payments.
The new firm also made headlines after it came with bulldozers and razed down houses at the compound as well as nearby shops.
“The 9th December 2021 was a dark day for the residents of C-Mine, darker than the darkest night,” Zhou said.
“The new C-Mine investor who has been engaged in a wrangle with former C-Mine workers for the past two years brought bulldozers to destroy the former workers’ houses and shops in a manner reminiscent of the brutal Rhodesian homesteads of Gairezi area in the 1970s.”
Zhou alleged that the new company officials were accompanied by law enforcement agents in the “destruction of people’s houses and property without a court order.”
He called upon government to intervene on behalf of the displaced workers.
The workers’ spokesperson Vincent Dube said over 300 employees were owed US$3,5 million by former employer Patrick Dawn through his company Maple Leaf.
But one of Sutton local shareholder is said to have told the workers that they were owed nothing and could go to the courts if they had grievances.
But to Mhofu despite all the disputes between the new investor and former C-Mine workers, the survival and safety of his family remains a key issue given that we are approaching the rainy season.
“Mberengwa is one area associated with torrential rains usually accompanied by hailstorms and you can imagine the consequences to be faced by families crowded in a temporary home,” he said hopelessly.
Human rights defenders have often accused government of either playing complacency or at times accomplice whenever investors clandestinely displace people where there are rich natural resources.
