{"id":1920,"date":"2026-03-27T18:06:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/?p=1920"},"modified":"2026-03-27T18:06:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T18:06:27","slug":"communities-demand-accountability-as-mining-riches-fail-to-deliver-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/2026\/03\/27\/communities-demand-accountability-as-mining-riches-fail-to-deliver-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Communities Demand Accountability as Mining Riches Fail to Deliver Development"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Nadine Black<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MUTARE, 27 March 2026<\/strong>\u2014 Community members, youth representatives, and civic actors gathered in the capital on Thursday to demand greater transparency in Zimbabwe\u2019s mining sector, charging that decades of mineral extraction have left local communities impoverished while revenues remain unaccounted for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The workshop, hosted by the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) at Manica SkyView Hotel yesterday , trained participants in \u201cfollowing the money\u201d\u2014a citizen-led accountability approach designed to trace revenues from extraction through to public spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite hosting one of the world\u2019s largest diamond deposits, communities in Marange and Penhalonga\u2014where mining has operated for over two decades\u2014continue to face poverty, environmental degradation, and dilapidated infrastructure, attendees said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe see the diamonds leaving our area, but our roads, clinics and schools are still in poor condition,\u201d said a woman from Marange. \u201cThis training has taught me that we have a right to know how much is being earned and how it is used.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A youth representative from Penhalonga said the training had shifted his understanding of development delays. \u201cI used to think they were just normal, but now I understand that we can actually track the money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A major point of contention raised during the session was Zimbabwe\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cFollow the Money\u201d 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nadine Black MUTARE, 27 March 2026\u2014 Community members, youth representatives, and civic actors gathered in the capital on Thursday to demand greater transparency in Zimbabwe\u2019s 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)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1922,"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions\/1922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewasupost.co.zw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}