Story by Kenias Chivuzhe
GROWTH in Zimbabwe’s mining and agricultural sectors is reshaping rural livelihoods in Goromonzi, where a rapidly expanding enterprise has created more than 1,000 jobs and triggered broad-based economic activity in the Arcturus area.
Once a quiet farming community, the area has been transformed into a bustling hub of mining and agricultural production, with ripple effects now visible in employment creation, infrastructure development and household incomes.
“The opening of this mine helped me a lot. My life has been transformed, and I now have a lot of belongings, including cattle and goats. I am now able to fend for my family. I have constructed my own house,” an employee said.
“The mine has helped me to look after myself. It has helped many families. I am from Binga, and I am now able to pay school fees for my children,” a family man said.
“The mine has transformed economic activities within this area. This has created employment with a lot of buildings being constructed. Going overseas is no longer fashionable as this is our diaspora,” a beneficiary said.
“We work here at Chibamu mine. The work here is helping us to fend for our families,” another employee said.
“The mine has grown in leaps and bounds in the last four years. We are turning a small-scale mine into a bigger mine. Utilising revenues from mining, we have diversified into agriculture and transport business, among other business ventures. We started very low, and we have grown exponentially. We thank the national laws that allow citizens to venture into mining activities as it is a form of empowerment,” Mine manager Cuthbert Mugunyanyini said.
Driven by high productivity, the enterprise has diversified into multiple business units, including poultry and piggery projects.
“I am a worker here, and I am happy because this is part of women’s empowerment, as it motivates us. I started working here as a truck driver in January this year,” Christine, Female Driver said.
“We are into a piggery project, and currently, we have 560 pigs after starting this project a year and a few months ago. We are failing to meet the demand, and we are working on expanding the project. We have a factory making sausages, and we also have a poultry project. We are producing 40 000 broilers at a time. We also have 10 000 layers. We are producing potatoes, cabbage, cornflower and broccoli as well as cucumbers,” Project Supervisor Mr Black Shato said.
The impact has gone beyond business, with a modern health facility and a school being constructed to serve the local community.
“We are grateful for the construction of the Chibamu health facility, as it brings services closer to the people. We were travelling long distances to Mabvuku to seek medical care,” a community member said.
“I am a local resident, and I am happy that one of our own has constructed a state-of-the-art school. We had only one secondary school in our area, and we are happy there are now two,” a resident said.
Chibamu Enterprises operations manager Pardon Chibamu attributed the success and economic transformation to the Second Republic polices aimed at promoting rural development.
“In order to fight drug abuse, we have employed a lot of youths at this mining entity. There are around 950 workers. We have over 500 working within the agriculture sector. We have many departments, as we are into piggery and poultry production and the transport sector. We also have a school and a clinic as a result of mining activities. We thank the government led by President Dr Emmerson Mnangagwa for its empowerment policies that have given us the capacity to venture into mining activities as well as farming activities,” he said.
For Goromonzi residents, Chibamu Enterprise stands as a powerful example of how government policies are transforming the mining and agriculture sectors as part of the strides to achieve an upper-middle-income economy status by 2030.
