Booted diamond miner Anjin seeks reinstatement

Source: Booted diamond miner Anjin seeks reinstatement – DailyNews Live

Tendai Kamhungira      12 July 2017

HARARE – Chinese diamond mining firm Anjin Investments (Anjin), which was
booted out of the Marange mining fields last year, has approached the
Constitutional Court (Con-Court) demanding reinstatement.

The application was made after Mines minister Walter Chidakwa ordered
diamond mining firms to stop operations in February last year and leave
the Marange fields as their licences had ostensibly expired.

Anjin was one of the nine firms mining the diamond fields in the east of
Zimbabwe near Mozambique.

Anjin is a joint venture between the government’s Zimbabwe Mining
Development Corporation and China’s State-owned Anhui Foreign and Economic
Construction Company and was run mainly by Chinese nationals.

In the application, Anjin cited Chidakwa, commissioner-general of police
Augustine Chihuri, the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation and the
Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC), as respondents.

“This is an application directly to this honourable court in terms of
Section 85 (1) (a) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No.20) Act,
2013 for the protection of the applicant (Anjin)’s constitutional rights
which have been infringed by the actions and conduct of the first
(Chidakwa), second (Chihuri) and fourth (ZCDC) respondents since February
22, 2016, whose conduct persists and has had a significant and detrimental
effect on the applicant and has caused it a substantial harm,” Anjin said.

It said that its right to protection of its property in terms of Section
71 (2) of the Constitution had been infringed or harmed by the
government’s actions.

The company is now seeking an order that sets aside government decision to
eject the mine from Marange.

Anjin is further seeking an order declaring that the directive to cease
mining operations and to remove its assets from the mining area
constitutes an infringement on the firm’s right to its property.

It addition, it wants an order barring the police from preventing Anjin
from accessing and lawfully conducting its business operations in the
area, among other issues.

The court heard that the Special Grant did not stipulate a period within
which it was to expire.

“A formal ceremony was conducted in February 2010 at which the president
of Zimbabwe officially handed over the Special Grant to a representative
of applicant in the presence of the then Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe
Xin Shunkang and Chinese defence attache, Zhuo Wei,” Anjin said.

The matter has been postponed to July 19 to allow the Anjin lawyer to go
through the heads of argument that was filed by the respondents in the
matter.