Oppenheimers get court relief

Source: Oppenheimers get court relief | The Financial Gazette March 30, 2017

THE High Court has cancelled mining permits given to small-scale miners in the vast Debshan Ranch in Insiza District of Matabeleland and also barred government from issuing any further permits and licences without Environmental Impact Assessment certificates.
This follows an application by the ranch owned by the Oppenheimer family for an order barring the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development from issuing mining permits to individuals for mining operations in the ranch.
The Oppenheimer family sold their 40 percent stake in De Beers to Anglo American Corporation, a diversified global miner in which they were also once significant shareholders.
Debshan is short for De Beers Shangani (Private) Limited.
In a founding affidavit by its general manager, Colin Richard Edwards, Debshan stated that it is a cattle rancher and wildlife safari operator that rears about 4 200 beef cattle as well as 4 000 wild animals on the land in dispute.
It employs 120 workers for the purpose of its operations, which Edwards said contribute significantly to the economy of the country.
He pointed out that any illegal activities at the ranch would adversely affect Debshan’s operations.
“Illegal and unplanned activities at the farm have a negative impact in that they pose a real risk of fire outbreaks which destroy vast grazing areas for livestock and wildlife. Poaching and killing of livestock by those coming onto the farm ostensibly for mining purposes is a real problem. Uncontrolled mining activities like prospecting, excavations and unprotected mine shafts pose physical danger to the applicant’s personnel, clients, visitors, cattle and wildlife, apart from degradation and damage to the environment,” Edwards said.
He further stated that since February 2013, there have been several incursions onto the farm by various groups of people intending to carry out mining activities on the strength of certificates, permits and licences issued by officials in the Ministry of Mines at various levels.
He pointed out that in all situations, ministry officials had issued the certificates, permits or licences without Environmental Impact Assessment certificates from the Environmental Management Agency in terms of Section 100 as read with Section 97 of the Environmental Management Act (Chapter 20:27).
He pointed out that the certificate is a pre-requisite for the issuance of a valid mining certificate, permit or licence.
“As a result of the respondent’s conduct, the applicant has been constrained to engage in costly litigation against those coming to the farm to conduct mining activities without the requisite certificates but having been issued with permits or licences by the respondents,” Edwards said, pointing to at least four other legal cases that the ranch had been involved in to get rid of illegal miners from its property.
“The applicant (Debshan) has therefore now had enough. It would like an order to be issued against the respondents to respect the provisions of the Environmental Management Act [Chapter 20:27] and not to issue certificates, permits or licences for mining purposes at the farm without compliance with the Act,” Edward pleaded.
Bulawayo High Court judge, Justice Nicholas Mathonsi, granted the relief sought.
“In my view, to the extent that the applicant complains that the manner in which the first and second respondents have been issuing out certificates, permits and licences to prospective miners targeting its farm like confetti at a wedding resulting in those given certificates, permits and licences using them to invade the farm, there can be no doubt that the applicant has an interest in that exercise.
“Whether those respondents are discharging their duties lawfully is therefore a matter affecting the applicant’s rights and interests,” Justice Mathonsi ruled.
The lawyer representing the Minister of Mines, Walter Chidhakwa, and the various of ministry officials cited in the case tried to defend their actions by arguing unsuccessfully that an Environmental Impact Assessment certificate was not a requirement at the application stage, but was required only at the commencement of operations.
The court ruled that it was wrong to suggest that the environmental impact assessment certificate was not a pre-requisite for the grant of a prospecting licence or indeed a mining licence.
The foregoing provisions clearly make it a requirement, which the first and second respondents (provincial mines directors) are enjoined to enforce. They cannot limit the scope of an application made to them in terms of the Mines and Minerals Act to the provisions of that Act only.
The other Act has added the pre-requisite of an environmental impact assessment certificate before mineral prospecting, mineral mining, ore processing and concentrating and indeed quarrying can be undertaken.
“The applicant has made out a case for the relief that it seeks. It is a matter in which a declaratur should be granted,” Mathonsi said.
The vast ranch—which spans an area covering parts of the Midlands, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South provinces and is said to be bigger than Belgium—has been at the centre of a tug-of-war since the on-set of the country’s controversial land reform programme in 2000.
Squatters have repeatedly invaded the farm on a number of occasions.