eBusiness Weekly
Business Writer
Bousteds Beef, the company which entered into an agreement with the Government to revive the Cold Storage Company (CSC), is seeking compensation from chrome miners who caused massive land degradation on its ranch in Darwendale.
Without stating the actual value of the compensation, officials said it could run into millions of United States dollars. Several mining companies owned by foreigners and locals set up make shift chrome mines and Bousteds estimates the total land that could have been destroyed could be 40 percent of the 10 000 hectare ranch.
Some companies and artisanal miners are still conducting the operations.
The Darwendale ranch, where CSC used to keep at least 25 000 cattle at any given time is now littered with huge heaps of chrome dumps and several flooded mining pits.
“The land needs to be rehabilitated for it to be suitable again for keeping the animals,” said one official who declined to be identified because he is not authorised to talk to press.
“Given the level of damage, it will run into millions of dollars.”
The official said Bousteds was planning to spend part of the money (if the compensation deal materialises) on boosting its herd of cattle, particularly in the communal areas. About 2 500 cattle are being kept at the ranch.
“We will engage all stakeholders (on the compensation),” said the official.
Reggie Shoko, a Boustead consultant, told Business Weekly in an interview on Wednesday that mining activities had to a larger extent made the environment unsuitable for keeping animals because of dangerous chemicals used by the miners.
“It is now more of a disused mine than a ranch,” said Shoko.
“We are also experiencing the same problem in our ranches in Chinhoyi and Bulawayo and we don’t know we are going to separate our agriculture and mining.” He added most of the miners were illegal, a claim that could not be verified by the time of going to print.
Child labour
Some illegal miners, including children as young as five, and women, have descended the ranch where they are extracting residual raw chrome from the dumps.
They are working under extremely dangerous conditions, risking their lives.
“We earn US$10 for every tonne and it take us about a week to build that quantity,” one of the illegal miners said. She said she was not aware of who they are working for, but some miners claim “a local businessman purchased” the dump materials for further processing.
“We stockpile the stuff and the “boss” send his trucks for collection normally after a week,” said the woman, who is in her mid 30’s.
Bousteads is working on reviving the CSC, but the process has been held back by a number of factors including a string of lawsuits, illegal mining activities on its ranches and labour disputes.
CSC is wholly owned the Government and used to be among the country’s largest employers before its fortunes waned due to a number of factors including loss of key export markets and stiff competition from private players after de-regularisation of the industry in 1994 as a result of structural adjustment programme.
Bousteads Beef and CSC entered into a 25 year joint venture agreement with the Government in January 2019 under a US$400 million deal.
But it immediately filed for a business rescue to protect the assets from being attached by creditors
