For Immediate Release
Date: Harare, 02 July 2025
The Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) calls for immediate government intervention following documented human rights abuses, forced displacements, and environmental destruction linked to the Magunje cement and mining projects, being developed by Labenmon Investments in partnership with China-based West International Holding.
According to public reports, the two companies are jointly investing US$1 billion to construct a cement plant in Magunje, Mashonaland West, with a production capacity of 900,000 tonnes of cement per year and 1.8 million tonnes of clinker, supported by a 100MW captive power plant. The investment is also expected to generate 5,000 jobs. However, the promise of economic opportunity is being undermined by allegations of land grabs, community exclusion, and rights violations in the host area.
Following growing distress calls from the community, CNRG visited the area and documented overwhelming evidence of land dispossession, intimidation, pollution, and labour exploitation in the name of clean energy and development. The community is disgruntle,d whilst government officials in the area display extreme indifference to the public’s concerns. CNRG is also reliably informed that one of the two Vice Presidents wrote a letter to the local authorities, endorsing the project without consulting those to be affected.
These abuses are not isolated. They reflect a wider pattern of corporate impunity, enabled by weak regulatory oversight and elite collusion. The use of fear and repression and criminal abuse of office by senior government officials when advancing their narrow, partisan interests, is causing distress among rural communities throughout Zimbabwe. This is undermining rural livelihoods as communities are forced to accept projects that pollute their environments, grab their water and land, and in many cases displace them without compensation.
Key Findings from the Ground:
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- Displacement Without Compensation: Families have been uprooted and ancestral graves bulldozed to make way for mining infrastructure, without due process or compensation.
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- Fraudulent Consultations: The community was excluded from legally required village-level consultations. A cancelled ward-level meeting is now being falsely used to justify operations.
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- Arrests and Intimidation: Eight villagers from Kapere, including the Headman, were arrested for protecting their land and are repeatedly appearing in Karoi Magistrate Court, despite the absence of the complainants. CNRG staff were also threatened by armed Zimbabwe National Army personnel at a mining site in Kemapondo village.
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- Environmental Degradation: Magunje Dam, a vital source of water for thousands of residents, is being polluted by effluent discharge from the cement plant. Farmlands and gardens have been destroyed by fire ignited by the company during a land-clearing exercise, worsening food insecurity.
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- Labour Violations: Workers operate under unsafe conditions, political discrimination, lack of contracts, and low wages that are pegged below the National Employment Council (NEC) agreed rates. These have also been separately documented by the Zimbabwe Diamond and Allied Minerals Workers Union (ZDMWU), which has taken these matters for arbitration at the Labour court.
We demand that the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development:
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- Halt illegal operations and ensure accountability: Immediately suspend Labenmon Investment’s operations in Magunje and conduct a transparent investigation into illegal land takeovers and flawed consultation processes, and publicly release all relevant permits, EIA reports, and land allocations.
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- Protect community rights and interests: Ensure communities are compensated for their losses, protect the rights of workers, and safeguard the cultural heritage of the affected communities
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- Stop all threats against communities and civil society actors defending community rights.
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- Ensure inclusive decision-making: Facilitate inclusive stakeholder engagement in decision-making, ensuring that affected communities have a meaningful voice in the project’s development. Communities must not be forced to give consent under duress.
Communities in Chasara and Kapere are not standing in the way of development; they are demanding that development respect their rights, heritage, and humanity. The Magunje case is a clear warning that Zimbabwe’s extractive boom risks becoming a new form of dispossession unless the government steps in decisively to protect its citizens.
We urge the government to consult communities on what development looks like to them and work with them to achieve those desired outcomes.
Centre for Natural Resource Governance
CNRG Information Department,
Email: info@cnrgzim.org
Cell +263 786 913 423
Twitter: @CNRG_ZIM
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cnrgzim