Enhancing the civil remedies regime for effective compliance enforcement in the mining sector in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Zimbabwe’s mining sector is currently dominated by negative themes of smuggling of precious minerals, illicit financial flows, corruption, violence, illegal mining and environmental degradation among others. All this has resulted in the failure of government to collect meaningful revenue from the mining sector. Most of the people in Zimbabwe are leaving in poverty with no access to essential services like health delivery, education, shelter, water and electricity. This should not be so in a country that is so rich in mineral resources. The Constitution of Zimbabwe explicitly states that natural resources in Zimbabwe must be exploited for the benefit of all the people of Zimbabwe. The mining sector has been chaotic and has not managed to project expected revenue. This all is despite the fact that there are various laws that have been put in place to regulate the mining sector. Regulation of mining activities will only be effective if effective compliance enforcement mechanisms are put in place. For laws to be effective there has be put in place adequate penalties for non-compliance. A close analysis of the mining laws in Zimbabwe reflects that to a greater extent non-compliance with mining laws is penalised through the criminal justice system. Penalties in the criminal justice system are usually criminal fines and imprisonment. It has been argued that the criminal sanctions are very lenient and thus have no deterrent effect hence the prevalence of non-compliance in the mining sector as the cost of noncompliance is much cheaper than that of compliance. This is what has led to all the illegal activities in the mining sector and the failure to collect expected revenue that can meaningfully help in meeting the need of the nation at large. It is beyond doubt that the situation on the ground shows that despite the criminal justice system for compliance enforcement being in place, compliance in the mining sector has been lagging behind. It is this observation that inspired the writer to have a keen interest to research on whether enhancing the civil remedies regime will help in effectively enforcing compliance in the mining sector. The civil remedies regime in Zimbabwe has a very narrow scope and is not even provided for in some of the mining law legislation. In comparison with other jurisdictions like South Africa, it can be observed that Zimbabwe still has room for expansion of its civil remedies’ regime. The research therefore seeks to investigate if there is still room for enhancing the civil remedies regime in Zimbabwe, how enhancement of the civil remedies’ regime can be done and whether this enhancement will improve compliance enforcement.