Chief Mayenga Fuyane of Maphisa has voiced concern over the violence, immoral behaviour and overall cultural erosion that illegal miners are causing in his district .
Maphisa is known for its gold deposits amongst other minerals, which has drawn a number of illegal miners to the area.
During an interview on CITE’s Breakfast Club, Chief Fuyane lamented that illegal miners were indulging in uncultured behaviour , leading to increased incidents of violence and criminality.
“There are now many people mining and they have different cultures that they are now bringing to our community. We are seeing a lot of incidents that we were not experiencing before, people are killing each other, people are getting mugged and even robbed at their homes as they want the gold,” Chief Fuyane said.
The chief also bemoaned how illegal mining was contributing to cultural erosion in the area and was concerned about the social consequences such as the exploitation of local children and their involvement in mining activities instead of attending school.
“These illegal miners, most of them are young men who impregnate our children. This has devastated us as the community because this is the death of our culture as children are now born within homesteads and don’t have fathers. These children end up using their uncle’s surname. Such has destroyed our family values,” Chief Fuyane said.
“The issue of illegal mining is affecting us as a community. We don’t know if those miners possess licenses but they are causing significant damage. Then there are also established mining companies who are also operating in the area.”
Chief Fuyane stressed the importance of engaging with illegal miners to mitigate environmental damage.
“The other thing is Maphisa is growing, some people claim that it’s due to gold mining but there is a need for engagement so that in their mining they don’t destroy the environment and as a community we benefit,” he said.
In reference to the requirement that mining activities must benefit the community, Chief Fuyane said he also aspired the same for Matobo.
“We have seen areas such as Gwanda where they have Community Share Ownership schemes and we aspire for similar arrangements in Matobo, companies such as Environmental Management Agency (EMA) should follow up on these companies that are leaving behind open pits. The companies should close them instead of leaving them so that our livestock don’t fall in those pits as most of them are left open and this affects us as communities,” he said and added that some also destroyed cultural sites.
“We have our cultural place at Bhalagwe where we do traditional rituals. Behind there is a mountain called Zamanyoni where there was the first gold rush but miners are disturbing our cultural place. Lately the rush is better compared to the first time when they discovered gold.”
Despite raising these concerns at various forums, Chief Fuyane expressed disappointment over the lack of tangible solutions and assistance from authorities.
“We have raised these issues even during the chiefs’ council but what is painful is that we have not seen any solution as villagers especially when it comes to us benefitting as the community. We wish the government could handle some of these things , we are not happy. The responses are there but there is no action, people are continuing to mine but we are not benefitting,” he said.
