In what can only be described as a shocking act of administrative treachery, the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development has endorsed the continued operations of Betterbrands Mining at Redwing Mine, a company the Supreme Court itself declared illegal.
This decision is not merely a bureaucratic blunder; it is an act of state-sanctioned environmental destruction and contempt for the rule of law.
Better Brands Mining Company is owned by Zanu PF legislator for Mabvuku Tafara, Scott Sakupwanya, and its operations are a direct indictment of the government’s complicit stance in environmental degradation.
By legitimising an entity whose activities have devastated Penhalonga, the government has chosen corporate impunity over community survival.
A recent media publication revisited the matter in the Zimbabwe Independent, which has boggled environmentalists and civil society.
The Supreme Court ruling of 2022 rendered Betterbrands’ “non-standard tribute agreement” void, and the Ministry reaffirmed that position in 2024.
Yet today, the same ministry — under the same leadership — has performed a breathtaking policy U-turn, effectively greenlighting the plunder of Redwing Mine.
The consequences are visible for all to see. Rivers that once sustained families now run thick with cyanide and silt.
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Hillsides are collapsing under the weight of unregulated digging.
Schools, clinics, and homes stand beside toxic pools that leach poison into the soil.
Penhalonga has become a symbol of state complicity in ecological annihilation — a community abandoned to chaos while elites profit from its ruin.
As the Centre for Natural Resources Governance (CNRG) we have documented and captured the cost of this betrayal: thousands of unlicensed processing plants, unsafe shafts, and polluted water sources.
Behind every gold gram smuggled out of Redwing lies a shattered ecosystem and a community gasping for breath.
By endorsing illegality, the ministry has not only undermined the Supreme Court, but also destroyed public confidence in environmental governance.
The government cannot claim to champion responsible mining while empowering those who violate the law with impunity.
CNRG calls for an immediate reversal of this reckless decision, enforcement of the Supreme Court ruling, and an independent environmental audit of Redwing Mine. Anything less is complicity in ecocide.
