A luta continua! Translated as “the struggle continues”, this was a phrase made famous by the late Mozambican war liberation hero, Dr. Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane, and is still a chant that echoes throughout Africa.
Africa’s rich mineral resources, which are undoubtedly in abundance, are once again at the centre of excessive mineral extraction by foreign masses. This is to the peril of the locals, who are always left bearing the brunt as they are often used to do the manual labour of extracting the minerals that are then shipped or flown out of Africa.
More often than not, Africans are at the forefront of making sure the rich natural resources are moved out of the continent for a pittance and “officials” pocket much of that so-called pittance, leaving the masses with nothing but bruised, instead of greased, palms. But let me not dwell on that wallowing and daunting scenario and instead focus on the manner in which international mining firms are contributing to the well-being of the continent. To find out more about this I had a round table discussion with Samson Dzingwe, a geologist and miner from Zimbabwe, Hyde Chatyoka also a geologist from Zimbabwe and Odesola Tola an administrator at the Geology of Nigeria.
“International mining companies are not contributing enough to the well-being of communities they are operating in, only few companies are ploughing back into the communities. Moreover, most African countries are unable to exploit their own natural resources, thus, because of China’s bait of loans to most African countries so poor African countries are left with no choice other than offering vast mineral lands to Chinese companies in return.
“In order to ensure that Africa benefits fully from the resources being extracted, all stakeholders must be exhaustively consulted regarding this issue and a clause linked to strategic minerals in mines and a Minerals Bill must be promulgated with local stakeholders’ valid concerns in the framework,” said Samson.
However, Hyde argued that international mining firms are playing a pivotal role in the well-being of many African communities but warned that they should be monitored.
“They are contributing in many ways but they need to be effectively monitored and directed. We need very strong institutions to audit their deeds because they are first and foremost economic beings. So foreign companies, apart from generating forex, the paying of taxes, creating formal employment, urbanizing remote communities and supporting downstream economic activities, they also transfer skills. The only challenge is that the skilled are addicted to informal employment and do not want to take the risk to enterprise using their skills. If you talk to artisans in those industries, they are much better off than they could have been had they continued in formal employment. For instance, in Zimbabwe it has taken the economic meltdown to get mining skills spreading nationally and look at the fruits? A growing informal sector anchored on mining. Mining is evenly spreading wealth regardless of age, status, education, race, political affiliation or religious persuasion. It is helping the young, energetic and able bodied to become productive. How do you think these people would survive fresh from school if there were no people skilled in mining to initiate and lead the move?
“In addition, for locals to fully benefit from these mining expeditions, the resources just need to be exploited regardless of national identity of project proponent. In Tete province of Mozambique, they were sitting on vast coal resources for centuries, they had to employ foreign capital and skills to enjoy the taste of how good coal is. In Kenya, they were sitting on oil. The same with Botswana on diamonds. In Zimbabwe, we have platinum along the Great Dyke, which is useless to us without foreign capital. In a nutshell, reverse racism is not only bad but detrimental to its proponent.”
Odesola agreed with Hyde on the notion of international mining firms playing a pivotal role in the well-being of African countries. However, he blamed government officials for illicitly awarding mining rights to some of the international mining firms and being lackadaisical when it comes to monitoring how the international mining firms will be going about the mining expeditions.
“Some mining companies do provide employment for locals, some do projects for community development, but what is also common is a fight between them. So contribution will be rated at 0 to 50 percent compared to what they are taking.
“As to the issue of how communities can fully benefit from their mining resources, international bodies, non-profit organizations and local government officials collectively can work together and assign certain percentages of profit for the benefit of community-development initiatives as well as assigning some jobs to the locally skilled and unskilled.
“When it comes to why international mining firms are continuously being given mining rights to excavate resources in most of the African countries, the issue is highly contentious but it comes down to giving it to the highest bidder, sometimes local miners do not have sufficient resources or there is simply no trust. Additionally corrupt government officials tend to do it their way.”
Image credit: Sierra Leone National Tourism Board
