eBusiness Weekly
Business Writer
Three mining firms – A & L Mining Syndicate, Ticharwa Murehwa and Mujere Mining Syndicate – are at each other’s throat over gold infested mining claims in Odzi, Manicaland, a development that disrupts production.
The ownership wrangle has already spilled into the High Court, but a judgment passed by Justice Davison Foroma, indicating that the three miners would revert to their original claims, is not being respected.
Documents seen by Business Weekly show that A & L Mining Syndicate, previously a joint venture involving Aaron Shanje and Lovemore Marange, then owned a mining claim that was 10 hectares big.
A & L Mining Syndicate was pegged in 2005.
Ticharwa Murehwa’s claim was 2,5ha while Kingstone Mudonhi of Mujere Mining Syndicate owned a 10ha mining claim.
However, in 2014 Mudonhi raised a boundary dispute against Murehwa. The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development in Manicaland stepped in and a determination was made in favour of Murehwa.
In 2016, Murehwa’s mine started producing large quantities of gold resulting in the mine winning a small-scale gold producer award.
But in 2017, one Aaron Shanje claimed to have been sent by former First Lady Grace Mugabe to get the farm so that it would be allocated to youths.
Shanje is said to have raised a complaint of encroachment onto his mine, A & L Mining Syndicate.
This allegedly resulted in the Mines Ministry to nullify its earlier decision that said all the miners should respect the earlier demarcations, and increased the size of Shanje’s claim to 15ha, in violation of a standing regulation that gold blocks should go beyond 10ha.
Due to the extension of Shanje’s claim, Murehwa has since been kicked out of this earlier claim to pave way for A & L Mining Syndicate.
Murehwa now holds 2,5ha in an area that has not been prospected while Mudonhi has been left with 2,7ha, with all the productive area handed over to A & L Mining Syndicate.
The chopping of mining claims happened during the time when Professor Francis Gudyanga was Permanent Secretary in the Mines Ministry.
Contacted for comment this week, Mudonhi confirmed that there is a dispute and they have tried to engage some officials cited by Shanje as being behind the grabbing of claims without success.
“In 2014, there was a dispute between the three of us. The Ministry of Mines came and resolved the dispute and said everyone should show their beacons.
“In 2016 when I had gone 60 metres deep, someone called Admire Mahachi came and said pane mwana ndipo pana amai but when we tried to verify his claims, we established he was lying about the people he claimed to be fronting and we refused to give him claims.
“We were once arrested on allegations that we were harbouring then Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s son and at some point they said we were harbouring soldiers at the mine,” said Mr Mudonhi.
He is now keen to meet President Mnangagwa to be assisted to recover his mine.
Murehwa and Mahachi could not be reached for comment this week.
