Small scale miners have accused employees working in the
Ministry of Mines of corruptly delaying issuing mining certificates to pave way
for their favoured candidates who are paying them, Zim Morning Post has learnt.
In new developments in the corrupt activities in Midlands
Province small scale miners are accusing the Midlands Provincial Mining
Director Nelson Munyanduri and the national office of operating a
“well-orchestrated conspiracy of deceit, fraud, misrepresentations, chicanery
and double-dealing” after he double allocated a mining certificate on a
disputed land.
The allegations are being raised by Tich Darangwa, Happias
Chingwanya, Daniel Mutisi, Nhamo Mapiye, Simbarashe Chikweza who are accusing
Munyanduri of corruptly granting an application of a mining certificate to a
company without following due processes prejudicing the five who had applied
for the same area four months before.
The beneficiary of the corrupt certificate is Allen Sibanda
manager of New Horizon Mining Syndicate who is accused of being politically
connected and corruptly paying the officials from the ministry to override
court orders.
According to court papers seen by this application,
ministry of mines is said to have fraudulently granted Sibanda a mine
certificate without due processes for a mine claim that had already been
applied for by the five.
It is in the court papers that the granting did not follow
proper procedures in which Sibanda was in a waiting list.
“Quite how he managed to jump the queue and get a special
grant for our mining location when his application was at least four months
behind ours and while we were still in a dispute resolution process is
deliberately not explained in his application. In fact, what has happened is
that even 2nd Respondent (Munyanduri) was taken by sur-prise when told by the
police that 1st Respondent (Sibanda) had a special grant, which was not even
logged in his (2nd Respondent’s) office, despite him being in the role of a
Mining Commissioner for the area.”
The truth of the matter is that officials from 3rd
Respondent’s (Ministry of Mines) Harare office bypassed procedures and ignored
our prior application and the dispute resolution process that was still extant
and decided to give 1st Respondent a special grant,” further said the court
papers.
The five accuse Sibanda of intentionally causing chaos at
their mine after realising that it was producing more gold than his.
“…but has always been intent on taking our mining location,
knowing as he does that there is gold there. I do not think that there is much
on his location, which is why he coverts ours. But the way he has gone about it
is through deceit, double-dealing and fraud,” wrote the accused.
The accusations come at a time Zim Morning Post had
reported that some officials at the ministry of mines are causing manmade
disputes at various mining towns in the country.
Small scale miners claim the officials monitor gold
produced in various mine claims and once they establish that you are producing
more they will use all means necessary to remove you from the mine claim.
Ministry officials are said to be capitalising on the long
processes in the justice delivery system to loot gold from not politically
connected victims.
“The syndicate monitors every gold production and once you
start producing more they will send thugs who will disrupt your work and once a
police are involved they will use court processes whilst they are mining,” said
a victim of the man-made disputes in mining town of Gweru.
Small scale miners said money was also exchanging hands
with some judges who are handling the cases to either dismiss it or
continuously postpone it. Zim Morning Post
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