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Unki Mine

Mining Correspondent
ANGLO American-run platinum producer, Unki Mine, says it has injected about $22 million into community development projects in Shurugwi and Gweru since 2005.

The firm has rolled out a number of corporate social responsibility projects covering health, education and agriculture among others.

Unki general manager Walter Nemasasi told Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Minister Chris Mushowe during a recent familiarisation tour that his company was committed to working with the government in fostering community development. “Unki Mine has invested $21,985,036 into the community as part of our corporate social responsibility. Our projects date back to 10 years up to the second quarter of 2015,” said Nemasasi.

“We’ve built a lot of infrastructure around Shurugwi and we continue to invest. Already we’re setting up a smelter plant, which is of more significance to the economy.”

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 1,000 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 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.

The community share scheme was commissioned by President Robert Mugabe.

Minister Mushowe commended the company for working closely with the community.

“As the government we’re happy to be told of tangible socio economic developmental projects done in the communities around. It’s not only here in Shurugwi but they’ve stretched to Gweru, which is the provincial capital. Citizens here are feeling the presence of the mineral through a number of infrastructure projects such as hospitals, schools, roads, houses and irrigation. All this is from platinum ore proceeds,” said the minister.

“People here have an appreciation of the mineral because it has value-added their communities and they’re benefiting.”