The Sunday News
Feature Tinomuda Chakanyuka
BULAWAYO, like many metropolises around the country, is heavily burdened with an ever increasing demand for housing. The local authority has over the years been parcelling out housing stands, in low, middle and high density suburbs to contend with the escalating demand for accommodation. Housing co-operatives have also come in to support endeavours by central and local Government to provide adequate housing for citizens.
The parcelling out of housing stands coupled with stabilisation of the economy in recent years has inevitably spurred construction activity in the city.
While the increase in housing construction has been a welcome development in so far as dealing with the burdensome housing waiting list, it has brought along with it a serious curse — the scourge of sand poaching.
Rampant illegal sand abstraction is slowly establishing itself as one of the biggest challenges authorities in the city have to contend with.
Sand poachers have launched relentless and sustained attacks on the environment, destroying thousands of acres of land, digging pit and river sand.
Pit sand and river sand are critical materials in the construction industry and have become a fast selling commodity in light of the heightened construction activity in the city.
Cowdray Park, Pumula, Robert Sinyoka, Methodist Village and Hyde Park high-density areas are some of the locations in and around the city that have been gravely affected by sand poaching.
Unlike in Harare where sand poaching is done in broad day light, Bulawayo’s sand poachers carry out their activities during witching hours to evade authorities.
Battles often ensue between the sand thieves and the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Authority (Zimparks) and the Bulawayo City Council rangers, battles that in some instances have turned bloody.
The poachers, armed with picks, shovels and all sorts of earth moving artillery, travelling in dilapidated trucks that are hardly roadworthy, are a constant feature in the mentioned areas, where their operations have left a trail of unrehabilitated pits strewn all over.
Not only are the unrehabilitated pits an environmental eyesore, but they have also proven to be a serious danger to lives of people, particularly children, during the rainy season.
These pits suddenly turn into dangerous deep pools when filled with water during the rainy spell.
Last year a nine-year-old boy from Cowdray Park drowned after he lost control of a makeshift plastic raft he was using to float in one of the unrehabilitated water filled pits in the suburb.
The previous year another 11-year-old boy from Magwegwe North in Bulawayo drowned while swimming with friends in a pit that was left uncovered by sand poachers.
These are only two of the many cases reported of children who have lost lives in and around the city after drowning in water filled pits left open by sand poachers.
About two months ago the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) held a media tour of several illegal sand abstraction sites in and around the city, showing the extent sand poaching was costing the city the aesthetic value of its flora.
One site close to the Methodist Village near Old Pumula high density suburb has developed 250 metres in length, about 70 metres wide and about three metres deep within a space of two weeks.
“This pit developed in just two weeks and it illustrates the extent to which these people are destroying the environment. At this rate one can only imagine the amount of damage these people are causing to the environment. Give them a year and they will destroy everything we have,” said Mr Decent Ndlovu, EMA provincial manager for Bulawayo Metropolitan Province.
The sand poachers don’t seem to have any respect for the dead. Hyde Park Cemetery is also under threat from illegal sand abstraction with a couple of graves having been defaced.
Key infrastructure in and around the city is also under threat, from the widespread indiscriminate digging. Zesa electricity pylons near Methodist Village on the periphery of the city are at risk of collapse if digging activity around the area continues unabated.
Two big pits have been dug by sand poachers in Methodist Village and the two pits are too close to the Zesa pylons, putting the structures under threat if the soil around was to loosen.
Residents have called on authorities to step up efforts to curb sand poaching in the city.
“The activities have reached alarming levels. Just look at all these pits that have been left by poachers and how much of a danger they are to people. In as much as council may say they have put in place measures to control the poaching of sand, we feel they need to do more to end the digging,” said Mrs Monalisa Mthembu of Cowdray Park.
Some residents, however, feel sand poachers should be allowed to carry out their activities but far away from residential areas where they would be compelled to reclaim the pits afterwards.
“This is some form of employment and a number of people are earning a living through the engagement. What is needed is for authorities to regularise the sand poachers’ activities so that they don’t dig indiscriminately. Their operations should be taken far away from where people stay,” said another Cowdray Park resident Mr Patrick Bhebe.
Mr Ndlovu, from EMA said there were regulations against land degradation and urged those willing to extract sand to register with the local authority and conduct their activities in designated areas.
Statutory Instrument 7 of 2007 of the Environment Impact Assessments and Ecosystems Protection Regulations as amended by Statutory Instrument 4 of 2011 requires anyone who engages in sand abstraction for commercial purposes to be in possession of a licence.
“A lot of construction activity is happening in the country and that has naturally caused an increase in the demand for sand. As EMA we are not saying people should not extract sand, but it has to be done within the confines of the law. The law requires that anyone extracting sand for commercial purposes gets a licence first.
“When they get the licence that doesn’t mean they can go around digging everywhere. They should confine their activities in areas that have been set aside for sand abstraction,” said Mr Ndlovu.
Bulawayo City Council could be as culpable as the sand poachers in the destruction of the environment due to illegal sand abstraction as the local authority does not have any area designated for legal sand abstraction.
The lack of designated sand abstraction sites may be the reason for rampant haphazard digging around the city, and may as well be the justification sand poachers want to continue with their unlawful activities, albeit putting the lives of people in danger.
BCC senior public relations officer Mrs Nesisa Mpofu acknowledged that the local authority did not have designated areas for sand abstraction.
“We note that at the present moment the City of Bulawayo does not have designated areas as the sand abstraction has been authorised in the neighbouring periphery of Umguza. We are, however, working towards two legal pits at Mazwi and Khami for pit sand,” she said.
Mrs Mpofu said in the meantime the local authority was carrying out patrols in the affected areas in a bid to contain the rampant poaching of sand.
“We are also engaging key stakeholders such as the Environmental Management Authority, Forestry Commission, the District Administrator’s Office, Zimbabwe Republic Police, the local councillors and the affected villages of Robert Sinyoka, Mazwi, St Peter and Methodist to map a way forward. We hope that the stakeholder meetings will assist us come up with a solution to minimise the challenge,” she said.
The local authority has also left a number of unreclaimed pits around the city, pits that were dug for the extraction of quarry and sand during construction of some suburbs in Bulawayo.
Some of the pits are more than 10 years old and council should lead by example by reclaiming the pits or at least erect fences around them to prevent children from swimming in the pits when they are filled with water during the rainy season.
