By Nadine Black
MUTARE, 27 March 2026— Community members, youth representatives, and civic actors gathered in the capital on Thursday to demand greater transparency in Zimbabwe’s mining sector, charging that decades of mineral extraction have left local communities impoverished while revenues remain unaccounted for.
The workshop, hosted by the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) at Manica SkyView Hotel yesterday , trained participants in “following the money”—a citizen-led accountability approach designed to trace revenues from extraction through to public spending.
Facilitator Nqobizita Mlambo of the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development led discussions on public finance management, urging participants to scrutinize financial flows in a sector long criticized for opacity.
Despite hosting one of the world’s largest diamond deposits, communities in Marange and Penhalonga—where mining has operated for over two decades—continue to face poverty, environmental degradation, and dilapidated infrastructure, attendees said.
“We see the diamonds leaving our area, but our roads, clinics and schools are still in poor condition,” said a woman from Marange. “This training has taught me that we have a right to know how much is being earned and how it is used.”
A youth representative from Penhalonga said the training had shifted his understanding of development delays. “I used to think they were just normal, but now I understand that we can actually track the money,” he said.
A major point of contention raised during the session was Zimbabwe’s reliance on a colonial-era mining law dating back to the 1960s. Participants noted that the proposed Mines and Minerals Bill has languished in Parliament for over 20 years without passage, leaving in place what they described as a repressive legal framework that prioritizes extraction over community rights, transparency, and equitable benefit-sharing.
Workshop facilitators reminded participants of their constitutional right to access information under Section 62 and urged citizens to demand disclosure of mining contracts, taxes, and royalty payments.
The “Follow the Money” initiative, organizers said, seeks to bridge the gap between resource extraction and community development by equipping citizens with tools to enforce accountability from both government and mining companies.