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Sukoluhle Ndlovu, Midlands Correspondent
ANGLO American-run platinum producer, Unki Mine, has budgeted close to a million dollars for community development projects in Shurugwi for this financial year.

The company has injected over $22 million in a number of corporate social responsibility projects covering health, education and agriculture among others in the Gweru and Shurugwi since 2005.

In an interview on the sidelines of the tour of Unki Mine by the Midlands Minister of State for Provincial Affairs, Owen Ncube yesterday, general manager Walter Nemasasi said projects to the tune of $900 000 had been approved as the company intensifies its corporate social responsibility programme.

“For this year 2018 we are going to spend $300 000 for community projects mainly that deal with establishing and equipping health care centre for the community we operate in,” he said.

“On top of that we are spending $25 000 in each of the 24 Wards in Shurugwi for the development of schools infrastructure and that will cost about $600 000 bringing the total for such projects to $900 000.”

Unki conducts its mining operations at Selukwe complex platinum fields. It has transformed Shurugwi town through construction projects and has also bought equipment for Gweru Provincial Hospital in addition to refurbishing three clinics. In Shurugwi, the company has invested in major infrastructure such as Impali housing project for about 1000 residents.

The firm has constructed Lucillia Dam and assisted in upgrading several roads around the district and surfacing of a 17km road. The mine has donated an ambulance and an incinerator to Shurugwi District Hospital and supplied three clinics in the district with critical drugs for six months.

It has built and equipped Ruchanyu Secondary School, Impali Primary and refurbished other primary and secondary schools in the district. Unki has also developed and equipped 21-hectare Shungudzevhu Irrigation Scheme and constructed a strip canal that supplies the project with water with 22 families benefiting from it. The company made a once off payment of $10 million to the Tongogara Community Share Ownership Trust as seed capital.

Minister Ncube commended the company for developing the community it operates from through its vibrant corporate social responsibility programme.