HARARE - Parliament has summoned the Marange Zimunya Community Share Ownership Trust (MZCSOT) to reveal the state of its finances and its projects, as it seeks to audit the scheme launched by government two years ago.
Darlington Chinaka, the chief executive officer of the MZCSOT and his team, will tomorrow appear before the parliamentary portfolio committee on Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment to give an insight into the activities of the Trust.
The portfolio committee, which is new in this 8th Parliament, is chaired by youthful Gokwe-Nembudziya MP Justice Wadyajena.
“The purpose of the meeting is for you to give the committee an insight of the Marange Community Share Ownership Trust on the following; a financial report on funds received and pledged, projects undertaken, challenges being faced in the administration of funds, and the Trust’s work-plan,” read part of the letter written to Chinaka by Austin Zvoma, the clerk of Parliament.
Wadyajena’s committee has not taken time to get off the blocks as it has already heard from the Youth and Indigenisation ministry on its activities and work plan.
Tomorrow’s hearing is expected to provide MPs with an opportunity to hear the events surrounding the functions and funding of the MZCSOT.
President Robert Mugabe in 2012 launched the Marange-Zimunya Community Share Ownership Trust with a pledge of an initial contribution of $50 million.
Mugabe told the launch: “Let me advise the trustees to refrain from misappropriation of resources from the transactions.
“We greatly hold our respected chiefs with esteem and honour hence they are the ones entrusted to lead their communities out of poverty.”
But it is not known how much has so far been injected into the Marange community coffers, with other reports suggesting that so far, it has received only $400 000.
It is not clear how many companies amongst those mining diamonds in Marange have actually injected money into the MZCSOT.
There are three major companies currently mining diamonds Marange namely; Marange Resources, Anjin and Mbada Diamonds who are in a 50-50 joint venture with the government-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC).
Gye Nyame, a consortium of Ghanaian and Zimbabwean investors has since stopped mining activities at Marange.
There has been frenzied reporting on the Marange diamond fields and disquiet expressed by the communities in Marange over the way they have been treated by some of the companies mining in the area.
As part of empowering communities in areas where there are mining activities, government launched the community share ownership trusts as a way of empowering the locals resident in those communities.
So far, very few communities have actually received the money despite the fanfare and rhetoric by government during their launches, where dummy cheques exchanged hands.