State-Owned Diamond Firm Resumes Mining After Meeting Environmental Requirements

The Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) says it will resume mining after it was issued an Environmental Impact Assessment certificate by the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) late Friday.

The High Court had ordered the state-owned miner to halt operations over non-compliance with environmental requirements. ZCDC started mining in March last year, without an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) certificate, contravening section 97 of the Environmental Management Act, as read with the First Schedule of the Act.

The EIA certificates have just been issued and ZCDC will with immediate effect switch on its processing plants and we start to recover diamonds,” chief executive Moris Mpofu said in a message to The Source.

Earlier, Mpofu said the state-owned firm had stopped mining operations last week after a High Court order.

“The High Court order was made in the presence of our lawyer so we complied on that basis,” said Mpofu,.

EMA recently dispatched its teams to Chiadzwa for a verification and audit exercise while the EMA board also visited ZCDC operations.