Compensation for Chisumbanje villagers

A CABINET committee tasked to resolve disputes around the Chisumbanje ethanol project last week said villagers affected by the setting up of the venture through displacements and injuries during skirmishes would be compensated.

The chairperson of the cabinet taskforce, Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Arthur Mutambara told lawmakers last week that they have since constituted a District Ethanol Implementation Committee (DEPIC) to address villagers' concerns that include poisoning of their water sources.

The committee consists of a lawmaker, councillors, the area's headman, chiefs, the District Administrator, the Rural District Council as well as Green Fuel, the owners of the multi-million dollar project.

The cabinet committee has made a recommendation for local employment equity so that people from Chisumbanje and Chipinge could get jobs as everyone else in the country.

"There have been problems with Chisumbanje where people lost their cattle. Their cattle were slaughtered, some were injured and some were victims of poisoned or polluted water. Every individual or every member of the community in Chisumbanje who has been victimised by the project must be compensated," Mutambara said.

"We have come up with our research and identified such cases and made a decision that they must be compensation for all the people who were victims or who were displaced by the project."

The project started off as a Build Operate Transfer (BOT) deal, with government taking control after 30 years. However, the cabinet committee has resolved that government cannot do mandatory blending for a private company; hence work is underway to convert the BOT deal to a joint venture where the private player and government are partners.

The DPM told lawmakers that even though a statutory Instrument was gazetted recently stipulating a mandatory five percent blending; the drawback was that the law says a company can only blend if it is in partnership with government.

To get around this challenge, the cabinet committee met last week on Monday to discuss issues related to the new shareholding structure. The committee is expected to work on the basis of a Memorandum of Agreement that would spell out the shareholding ratios.

Government also wants the project to comply with the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act which stipulates that 51 percent shareholding, of any foreign-owned company must be held by locals.

Mutambara said politics was partly to blame for problems at Chisumbanje.

"One of the major problems at Chisumbanje has been politics and politics and more politics between our political parties - who shall remain nameless in this great chamber. There has been a big debate that says, who is going to unlock political capital from the project? Who is going to get the votes from the project? Who is going to do the distribution of the irrigated plots?" said Mutambara.

"Fear is that whoever does that is going to have a political advantage. So, there has been tussling and fighting among our parties to unlock political capital out of the Chisumbanje Ethanol Project. This has been a major problem."