The Chinese-owned Hualin Quarry Mine has entered into an agreement with the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) to rehabilitate the road infrastructure in Pumula North at a cost of US$360 000.
Residents have been complaining that the heavy-duty vehicles that transport quarry from the mine have damaged the roads in the area.
They also raised concerns that the mining activities were causing a health hazard due to explosions and noise pollution emanating from their activities.
Ward 17 Councillor Sikhululekile Moyo revealed the latest development on the sidelines of a residents’ meeting on Wednesday.
“This mine had promised that they are going to assist us to rehabilitate the road, they have sat down with BCC as they are the ones who do the scope of work. The local authority did an assessment and realised that Ngena road which residents are complaining about is 2.1 kilometres,” she said.
“Council did the quotation which is in three phases and it roughly cost about US$360 thousand to cover the needed material.”
Moyo said the Council officials then engaged the mining company and they have an agreement on how they are going to rehabilitate the road.
“The company can give whatever they have but the Council is the one fixing the road,” she said.
Cllr Moyo added that the mining company is also working on meeting its promises on measures to mitigate water challenges in the ward.
“There are other promises that they had told us, we observed that we don’t have boreholes in our ward due to quarry found underground, the company is in the process of installing water kiosks, the council said they have finished constructing the stand and the company has already bought the JoJo tank to be installed at Ebabambeni which is in the high lying areas and they often receive water late,” she said.
Councilor Moyo said the mining company will also put the second water kiosk in another different section.
“There are other things that residents had asked for, for example, there are vulnerable families in the community, the mining company recently gave us some groceries which benefited about 20 families in Pumula North and also 20 families in peri-urban areas, where the resident leaders are the ones who distributed the food,” she said.
She added, “The company explained to us that they are still growing hence still trying to meet up with some promises and we hope that it will be clear going forward,”
Moyo said the rehabilitation of the road is their top priority, “We hope that phase one will start soon.”
