By Staff Reporter
The Manhize Steel Plant Project, located in Manhize village, Chirumanzu district of Midlands province, started taking shape in June 2022 when preliminary works by Dinson Iron and Steel Company (DISCO) started on the site.
The Manhize community was set up around the Year 2000 at the height of the fast-track land reform programme. It is largely an agrarian community.
DISCO is a subsidiary of the Chinese giant steel producer Tshishang Holdings Group which is active in the stainless steel and nickel industry.
The company said it was going to pump US$1 billion into the Manhize project when the whole investment strategy was presented to the government and the public at the onset of 2022.
By June 2022, the company announced that the project was 25 per cent complete, with material to complete the first phase of the plant having been delivered on the ground by that time.
Briefing Minister of State for Presidential Affairs in charge of Implementation and Monitoring, Dr Jorum Gumbo during a tour of the plant on 29 June, Disco senior manager, Mr Bai Johnson said all critical equipment to complete the first phase of the plant had now been offloaded on the ground and thanked the Government’s facilitation in the import process.
Mr Johnson at that time said apart from constructing a separate power line over 100km from the site, the company was also constructing a railway line from Manhize to Masvingo in preparation for exports through the Mozambique border.
At that time some blast furnace components worth millions of dollars arrived at the plant much to the cheer from the villagers from the surrounding community who got excited by the development but are now in depression due to forced and unfair evictions which the Centre for Natural Resource Governance is currently pushing back.
More equipment from more than 100 abnormal trucks arrived at the site from Durban Port in South Africa between July and September 2022.
During that time, the Centre for Natural Resource Governance began conscientizing the communities on the need for them to know that any extraction of natural resources in their areas was supposed to be of great benefit to them and not a cause of problems such as unfair displacements.
To date, Dinson has completed the construction of administration blocks, the platforms for the blast furnaces are already in place and work is underway.
Geological surveys revealed that the place has huge ore reserves that will take the mine’s lifespan beyond 200 years, with the potential to produce 1,2 million tonnes of iron and steel per annum.
When complete the company will be producing around 1,2 million tonnes of steel, according to its officials, but CNRG insists that there is a need for the local communities to benefit from the natural resource and therefore ensure that there is restoration of livelihoods for villagers being affected by the project.