Chief, illegal gold mining syndicate, wreak havoc in Zhombe

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BY BRENNA MATENDERE

Zhombe, Midlands – A syndicate of miners led by Chief Gwesela of Zhombe, in the Midlands Province, has left a trail of damage inside a privately owned dam, which is also used by the community, after embarking on illegal alluvial gold mining disguised as a desilting exercise, an investigation by The NewsHawks has established.

The mining activities have resulted in the dam wall being extensively damaged.

Desilting is a process of restoring a dam’s natural capacity without widening or deepening it through removal of sediments such as sand. Alluvial gold mining, on the other hand, is the extraction of gold from sand and sediment deposits in rivers, valleys, and flood plains.

Investigations carried out in collaboration with Information for Development Trust (IDT) revealed that Chief Gwesela, born Ndabazihle Wait Ndebele, unprocedurally acquired a permit to desilt the dam from Zibagwe Rural District Council chief executive officer Farayi Desmond Machaya, without consulting councillors.

 

Satellite image of Madollar Dam before destruction

 

In a letter authorising the project, Machaya also misrepresented that permission was granted following approval from the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) and the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa).

Zinwa is a state-owned enterprise that plans, develops, and manages water resources in Zimbabwe. EMA on the other hand is a statutory body responsible for ensuring the sustainable management of natural resources and protection of the environment as well as the prevention of pollution and environmental degradation.

Armed with the letter Gwesela carried out alluvial gold mining, resulting in extensive environmental inside the dam and in the dam’s immediate environment, allegedly with police protection.

Corruption and circumversion of procedure

Investigations revealed that Machaya issued an authorisation letter for dam scooping to a company called Hard Rock which was fronted by Chief Gwesela, without a council resolution.

Chief Gwesela sits on an excavator used for gold mining inside Madollar dam

 

Hard Rock is a gold processing company based in Kwekwe.

Machaya claimed he had consulted EMA and Zinwa before issuing the letter. Investigations however revealed it was false.

The letter dated 26 June 2024 reads: “Following consultation made with the Environment Management Agency and the Zimbabwe National Authority, you are hereby authorized to scoop Madollar Dam… You will be required to cart away the silt from the dam site and therefore correct equipment should be deployed.”

In an earlier letter on 23 May, Machaya had assured Chief Gwesela that the local authority would support the “dam scooping” bid. The mater had however not been discussed in council; hence the decision was unilateral.

“Please be advised that this local authority has no objection to the proposed dam scooping exercise at Madollar Dam situated at Summerview in Zhombe ward 4, under Chief Gwesela. This partnership will go a long way in providing a sustainable water source to Sessombi village 18, 19 and 20 farmers as well as surrounding commercial farms,” reads the letter.

Brave Samu, a Zanu PF councilor in Zibagwe told The NewsHawks the proposal was never discussed in any council meeting.

Zibagwe RDC has 33 councilors.

“According to our normal practice, the proposal was supposed to first be made to the environment committee of council for deliberation,” Samu said.

“That committee would then come up with a recommendation to the full council. After that, the issue would be discussed in a full council meeting and if it was passed by majority councilors, then it would become a resolution. But that did not happen,” he said.

The Zibagwe RDC environment committee chairperson Emmanuel Tshuma, who was supposed to receive the proposal and discuss it with his committee ahead of full council deliberations, said the issue only came to his committee when farmers complained about the illegal gold mining in the dam in July last year.

“The proposal for the dam scooping did not come to us as a committee,” he said.

“We only learnt about the issue when it had developed into complaints against those authorised to do the dam scooping that they were now doing gold mining. That is how I came to know about it.

“That was not proper and we are not happy.”

Contacted for comment, Machaya agreed that he authorised the dam scooping without a council resolution.

“There was no need for me to seek a council resolution because when Chief Gwesela came, he said together with his partner companies, they would scoop the dam as a donation service. So how can you seek a council resolution to receive a donation?” he asked.

However,  Sessil Zvidzai, former Local government deputy minister in the 2009 Zimbabwe Government of National Unity (GNU)  who also served as an executive mayor for Gweru in 2003 and is now a senator for the city, said protocol does not allow a single council official to implement a decision that is “unresolved” or without a council resolution.

He said Machaya can be held accountable for his actions that seem to border on corruption.

“No single individual can proceed to implement unresolved matters. The purpose (of council resolutions) is to ensure checks and balances and to enable the identification of blind spots in operations,” he said.

“It appears to me that the CEO either failed to spot the blind spot in the purported donation and could have allowed the mining of the dam inadvertently. 

“It could also be a case of corruption where this whole exercise benefits him directly. Now that the situation has morphed into this, he may have to answer for this failure to exercise  sufficient due diligence in this whole fiasco.”

When asked if he is satisfied with the donation and whether he has taken care of the Madollar Dam enough as the accounting officer of Zibagwe, Machaya repeatedly said “everything is under control”.

He however confirmed that the dam had been damaged as a result of alluvial mining and accused Gwesela and his partners of breaching their agreement.

A gold washing plant set by Chief Gwesela and his team inside Madollar dam

 

“We have received reports that the people who were supposed to do dam scooping went beyond that and started mining,” he admitted.

“As we speak, I was supposed to go with stakeholders to the site to see. Our team of technicians have already gone there and came back with reports that things did not go down well there but everything is under control. We will tell Chief Gwesela and his team to mend all damages with our engineers assisting,” he said.

Further investigations revealed that while the illegal alluvial gold mining was happening, riot police officers were deployed from Kwekwe to offer protection to Chief Gwesela’s syndicate at night.

Community members revealed the police officers would pitch a tent and patrol the area overnight. During the day, the deployed police officers camped at a lodge at Zhombe’s Joel Shopping Centre owned by Chief Gwesela.

A report on Madollar dam produced by the Anti-Corruption Trust of Southern Africa (ACT-SA), a non-governmental organisation that campaigns against corruption in both the private and public sectors, questions the manner in which the authorisation of the dam scooping was given to Chief Gwesela and his partners.

The report produced on 18 September 2024, titled “Illegal Alluvial Riverbed Mining Disguised as Dam Scooping: The Case of MaDollar Dam Riverbed Mining in Sessombi, Zhombe, Kwekwe” says there are threads of potential corruption in the deal.

“Through careful scrutiny, the threads of potential corruption and malfeasance must be unraveled, tracing back to the origins of the authorisation itself. Should the suspicions be borne out, swift and decisive action must be taken to rectify the aberration and ensure that such a betrayal of public trust never finds purchase within Zimbabwe’s institutions again,” reads the report.

ACT-SA suggested the police was complicit in the corruption after providing security to illegal alluvial riverbed mining.

The organisation said the collusion between the police and the miners represents a brazen subversion of the institutions that were meant to uphold the rule of law.

Obert Chinhamo, the ACT-SA director told this publication that corruption was involved in the invasion of Madollar Dam.

“The case of the MaDollar Dam demonstrates the nexus between corruption and environmental catastrophes we are witnessing in the country. And it has exposed members of an organised crime syndicate in the mining sector and it’s modus operandi. Firstly, to appear to be operating legally it armed itself with a fraudulently obtained dam scooping permit to defend itself against illegal alluvial riverbed mining activities,” he said.

“How can Zibagwe Rural District Council authorise third parties to do dam scooping in a private property without consulting the owners? I am also not sure if councillors had been consulted and passed a resolution authorising the same. And also how can the Zimbabwe Republic Police guard and protect illegal mining activities? In this case it is indisputable that police officers guarded and protected illegal alluvial riverbed mining activities and got paid for the services rendered.

“Justice should prevail and all those who facilitated the destruction of MaDollar dams should face the full wrath of the law.”

Chinhamo said ZACC should investigate circumstances that led to Zibagwe Rural District Council issuing the dam scooping authorization.

Stakeholders distance themselves

Zinwa spokesperson Marjorie Manyonga said the agency did not authorise the scooping of the Madollar Dam. She refused to comment further.

“Please contact the DDC (Kwekwe District Development Coordinator, Fortune Mpungu). Zinwa did not authorize this,” she said.

Mpungu in turn refused to speak.

“Unfortunately I am on vacation leave. I might have missed some of the details owing to lapse of time. Kindly get in touch with the CEO of Zibagwe RDC,” he said.

Then Kwekwe District Police Officer (Dispol) Chief Superintended Ison Chapeta, who was the officer commanding the district last year when the deployments of officers was made at Madollar Dam, said he preferred the current Officer Commanding Midlands to answer questions.

He revealed he has retired from police but denied having acted corruptly.

When asked if he did not care to personally speak about the issue since deployments were directed by his office amid reports of corruption, Chapeta refused to budge.

“Why me when I am referring you to the Propol (Officer Commanding Province). Whoever is saying that ( that he is corruptly facilitated the mining) has a personal vendetta against me because I am now a retired someone,” he said.

The Officer Commanding Midlands Province Commissioner Patson Nyabadza said he was not aware of the deployments and challenged Chapeta to speak about them himself since he was dispol (officer commanding district) at the time.

“I never heard about those deployments and I do not know about the issue. In November and December I was on leave maybe that is when the deployments were done. Chapeta must tell you about that because he was the dispol,” he said.

When told that the deployments were done before he went on leave in the months before November,  Nyabadza said in that case it would require police national spokesperson Commissioner Paul Nyathi to comment.

Midlands provincial police spokesperson Inspector Emmanuel Mahoko also referred questions to Nyathi.

In written responses, Nyathi said: “According to Officer Commanding Police (Midlands Province),Commissioner Nyabadza, it is not correct to allege that the Zimbabwe Republic Police protected illegal activities at Dave Mhondiwa’s farm through Chief Gwesela.

“The police only moved in to restore order as parties were having a dispute. The mining dispute is being handled by the relevant Ministry and the local council. These are in a position to shed more light on the situation.”

Responding to concerns that those police officers deployed to Madolla Dam were paid by the miners to guard the illegal activities at night, Nyathi said it was irregular.

“The law is very clear, any miner who needs specific Police deployments at their premises, have to seek the authority of the Commissioner- General of Police where the appropriate considerations will be made based on the prevailing circumstances,” he said.

Environmental damage

This reporter confirmed mining was taking place during a visit to the area on 27 December 2024.

Destruction of Madollar dam by illegal alluvial gold mining led by Chief Gwesela

 

The dam has been completely destroyed and had no water.

There was no water inside the dam. Instead, deep open pits as a result of the mining activities conducted by Chief Gwesela and his partners using heavy excavation machinery, were littered throughout the dam.

The pits extended to the edge of the water source.

The dam wall has been replaced by a road used to ferry alluvial sand out to the washing plant, located about eight meters from the dam edge. A water pumping machine has also been installed.

A temporary shelter for the miners made of green tents was erected near the gold washing plant. Machinery used in the illegal mining activities was seen at the site.

Huge stockpiles of sand left after gold washing and excavation by heavy machinery in heaps measuring up to 14 meters were seen at the centre of the dam.

The NewsHawks observed that after washing gold from the sand collected by a front and loader inside the dam, Gwesela and his team would load it back into the dam leading to formation of the stockpiles. 

Satellite images obtained through Google Earth Pro show that in the past the dam used to be a vast water source that took a meandering shape surrounded with vegetation of short bushes.

This has all gone.

EMA confirms the damage

In written responses, EMA’s spokesperson Amkela Sidange, confirmed the agency is aware of the environment disaster at Madollar Dam.

“The Environmental Management Agency (EMA) is ceased with the issue of land  degradation in the Madollar Dam since May 2024. When the Agency received reports  on the presence of illegal miners, as per the operational procedure in such instances,  the Agency sought for joint operation with ZRP. Police details were deployed on site,  and the illegally miners were removed,” Sidange said.

“In June 2024 reports of mechanised mining  was received in the same area, the Agency attended to the issue and realised that the  local authority (Zibagwe RDC) had issued a letter authorising desiltation operations at  Madollar Dam.

“The Agency engaged the local authority enquiring the basis of authorisation against the backdrop of the Environmental Impact Assessment process and other associated procedures. The Agency caused for a stakeholder meeting to discuss the issue, which led to the retraction of the approval and the area remained under close monitoring by the Agency,” she said.

Sidange further revealed that EMA received more reports that the illegal mining activities were continuing “clandestinely resulting in an inspection in July where apparently no machinery was found onsite”.

“Further investigations into the matter revealed that the local authority (Zibagwe RDC) had issued yet another letter of approval for dam scooping. The Agency again engaged the RDC, resulting in yet another stakeholder meeting to discuss this fresh authorisation.

“In October 2024, the Agency noted once again the continuous land degradation resulting from the previously condemned activities thus resulting in the issuance of a ticket and an environmental protection order to the company to cease operations. Zibagwe RDC  later retracted the approval in early November after the EMA order. The Agency has continued to monitor the area without any operations taking place at the dam,” she said.

Sidange further said “unfortunately the illegal miners have returned thus again causing the Agency to seek for joint operations with the ZRP to deal with the illegal miners.

“The Agency will continue to monitor the area  working jointly with other stakeholders as part of the whole of government and society  approach to avert further harm to the environment.”

She reiterated that mining and its associated implementation activities are not regulated by a single sector and urged other regulatory agencies to play their roles also.

“It is multi-sectoral (regulating mining) meaning it remains very important for all entities with a regulatory role in this sector to religiously play those priceless individual roles to ensure sustainable mining is achieved,” she said.

“This includes the planning authorities as the custodians of those vital natural resources occurring within their area of jurisdiction to ensure their extraction is done in sustainable manner for posterity. It thus also remains critical to uphold the whole  of government and society approach in mining as a critical economic pillar, without  necessarily playing the blame game but together seek to entrench the tenets of sustainable mining.”

Violation of property rights, environmental laws and procedures

Madollar Dam is privately owned by a farmer, Dave Tongai Mhondiwa who has title deeds to a farm in which it is located. The farm measuring 721, 8092 hectares, was bought by the Mhodiwa family from the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (ARDA) in 1996. ARDA is a parastatal established in terms of the ARDA Act (Chapter 18:01) whose mandate is to spearhead Agriculture, Rural and Agro-Industry development in Zimbabwe.

In Zimbabwe, every person has the right to own property as evidenced in terms of Section 71(2) of the Constitution which states that “every person has the right, in any part of Zimbabwe to acquire, hold, occupy, use, transfer, hypothecate, lease or dispose of all forms of property, either individually or in association with others”.

Mhondiwa’s right to own the farm has therefore been violated by the invasion that has taken place inside the property.

Before the invasion, the dam held between 35 000 and 40 000 mega litres of water from rains. It was used as a source of water for Mhondiwa’s irrigation farming. Mhondiwa’s two neighboring commercial farmers Taurai Runesu and Robert Chivurugwi, who have 99-year leases, also depended on the dam.

In addition, community members in villages 18, 19 and 20 of Sessombi, which are downstream, were also benefitting from the water.

Investigations show that Mhondiwa was never consulted prior to the purported desilting exercise.

In separate letters dated 11 September 2024 that were stamped upon receipt by the Zimbabwe Republic Police, EMA and Zinwa, Mhondiwa complained about the violation of his property rights. He also alerted the institutions about the alluvial gold mining activities taking place while pleading for their intervention.

“We are seeking clarity if you gave permission for operations to be carried out in the dam as claimed by ZRDC (Zibagwe Rural District Council) on the 26 of June 2024,” reads the letter to EMA Midlands manager Benson Bhasera.

“If you gave consent, have you carried out a site visit to the dam in question? We are advising your office that no desilting works is being done, instead, there are mining activities being carried out with a gold washing plant having been set up.”

Mhondiwa’s letter Chapeta revealed he first alerted the police about the illegal gold mining activities inside his dam on 5 July 2024.

The police did not take any action.

“I expressed the urgency of the matter in the letter we wrote to your office on the 5th of July 2024. Once again, I am expressing the urgency of this matter. We are also disturbed by the observation that the illegal mining activities taking place in our farm are guarded by your police claiming to have been deployed by your good offices,” Mhondiwa wrote.

Also take note that riverbed mining which is taking place was banned on the 21st of August 2024 but this is continuing with impunity.”

Since 2011, Zimbabwe had allowed large scale and mechanical alluvial mining which however, resulted in water pollution, siltation and degradation of river channels.

When he announced the ban after a cabinet meeting on 21 August (2024), information minister Jenfan Muswere said the position was arrived at in order to protect water sources throughout the country.

Investigations by this reporter show that several constitutional provisions have been breached by the illegal alluvial gold mining activities at Madollar Dam.

Section 1 and section 12 (e) of the First Schedule to the Environmental Management Act says that “dam scooping and the abstraction and diversion of water from dams and other water reservoirs shall require EMA to issue an Environmental Impact Assessment first before commencement.”

Chief Gwesela and his compatriots did not acquire the EIA which therefore makes their activities at the dam illegal.

The mining was also unlawful in terms of section 73 (1) (a) of the Constitution, “every person has the right to an environment which is not harmful to their health or well-being”.

In terms of section 4 (2) (g) of the Environmental Management Act, “any person who causes pollution or environmental degradation shall meet the cost of remedying such pollution or environmental degradation and any resultant adverse health effects, as well as the cost of preventing, controlling or minimising further pollution, environmental damage or adverse health effects.”

A shaft left by alluvial mining activity led by Chief Gwesela inside the dam

 

Impact on community

Chivurugwi, a commercial farmer, who has a 99-year lease and was depending on Madollar Dam for irrigation said the destruction of the water source has negatively affected him and farmers down-stream.

“I have a 700-hectare farm and all these years I used to put a big hectarage of maize and sell as green mealies but I can’t do that anymore because the dam that would irrigate 40 hectares throughout the year has been destroyed,” he said.

“Mhondiwa himself had already nursed 10 000 plants of mango trees to spread in a hectarage of 20 hectares but all that went to waste because when he was about to start planting, the invasion started.”

Investigations that are supported by pictorial evidence further revealed that villagers downstream have lost cattle due to lack of water. Some images obtained from farmers also show cattle trapped in mud and slime flowing from gold washing activities inside the dam upstream as they look for water to drink.

Farmers  down-stream say the invasion of the dam has left them counting loses.

Spencer Gora, of village 19 said he lost one beast which was trapped by mud.

“The dam now has a lot of mud that is being pushed down-stream from the gold washing activities. I have one cow that went inside the dam looking for water and got trapped by the mud. We could not rescue it and it died,” he said.

“We had also established several nutritious gardens for green vegetables that we used for domestic consumption and for selling taking advantage of water  from the dam but all of them (gardens) have dried up.”

Sheilla Mabhikwa, of village 20, said the community has lost a reliable source of water.

“There are few boreholes in the community and so we would fetch water with wheelbarrows and take home for drinking after boiling it. We would also do some laundry there. But after the gold activities started upstream and destruction of the dam wall, there is now completely no water downstream,” she said.

Illegal gold mining activities have destroyed the dam wall

 

I did nothing wrong: Gwesela

Chief Gwesela insisted he only conducted a dam scooping exercise with his partners after getting permission from council.

“To start with, I am a chief in that area. How then do you point at a chief and accuse him of wrong doing in his own area of jurisdiction?” he asked.

“In as far as I am concerned, my subjects complained that a lot of siltation had taken place in Madollar Dam and so we needed to scoop the dam so that livestock can have access to water throughout the year.

“The accusations that I then led illegal alluvial gold mining have no basis. I did not do that. For the record, I have no unrestrained appetite for gold. I have a lot of gold claims that produce lots of it in several areas up to Shangani. So why would I bother to mine gold illegally?”

Regarding violations of property rights, Chief Gwesela said that when he was born, the dam was for the community and did not belong to anyone.

“My uncles used to depend on that dam when we were born and that is where we would take our cattle for drinking. We used not to know Mhondiwa at all until recently when he started writing letters to stop us from dam scooping. That dam does not belong to anyone. It is for everyone and its use is free for all,” he said.

Asked to comment about this reporter’s personal observations, including the presence of gold mining machine and extensive environmental damage, Gwesela said: “I am not aware of the gold washing plant you are talking about or the kind of damage to the dam and if you keep asking me such questions it will leave me with no doubt that my enemies paid you to tarnish my name.”

This story was commissioned by Information for Development Trust (IDT) and first published by https://thenewshawks.com/chief-illegal-gold-mining-syndicate-wreak-havoc-in-zhombe/

 

 

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