State-linked Mutapa Energy Resources is preparing to move 104 families off land at Sandawana Mine in Mberengwa to clear the way for a US$300 million lithium processing plant, with more than 52 graves inside the proposed plant footprint also due to be exhumed.

Chief executive Innocent Rukweza told a briefing at the mine that model houses had already been built for inspection by government officials and traditional leaders, and that the company was aiming to finish all 104 homes between 20 September and the end of that month. Each family is to receive a four-roomed house with a kitchen and ablution facilities, at an estimated US$28,000 a unit, according to reports by Mining Zimbabwe and ZimLive.

“We are targeting September 20 to about the end of September to finalise all the 104 houses,” Rukweza said, adding that the affected families would then be moved.

The exhumations are expected to begin around 1 September, subject to outstanding burial orders being issued. “Once we do that, then I think land clearing will start,” Rukweza said.

Beyond the houses, Mutapa says it will fence the new settlement, install water reticulation to each household and relocate the primary school, clinic and police station that currently sit inside the mining lease. Supporting works include the upgrading of a 52-kilometre road from York to Sandawana, a water pipeline and a 132kV power line.

The company is targeting November 2027 to commission the concentrator. In the meantime Sandawana is toll-processing its ore at the Gwanda lithium plant, and Rukweza said the operation had generated more than US$80 million in revenue from those ore deliveries so far this year.

Mutapa Energy Resources is the mining and energy arm of the state-owned Mutapa Investment Fund, and the Sandawana project sits at the centre of Zimbabwe’s push to process more of its lithium at home rather than exporting raw concentrates.

Sources: Mining Zimbabwe; ZimLive

Zimbabwean nationals displaced by anti-migrant operations in South Africa’s Limpopo province are still camped outside Mankweng Police Station near Polokwane, appealing to their own government to pay for transport to bring them and their possessions home.

The public broadcaster SABC, which visited the site on 26 August, reported that goods and luggage belonging to Zimbabweans repatriated in July remain stranded there alongside people still waiting to leave. Herbert Masimba, one of those waiting, told SABC the group wanted Harare to contract hauliers directly.

“What we want the Zimbabwean government to do for us is to look for truckers who are willing to take these goods from here to Zimbabwe,” Masimba said. “Once they drop off these goods, the government should pay them and give them a binding contract stating that they will be paid once they have completed the work.” He said the group was compiling a list of people who wanted to be repatriated, and that buses had been promised.

The Bulawayo-based outlet CITE reported that trucks loaded with the goods remain parked at the police station while drivers wait on payment from the Zimbabwean government to cover fuel, tolls and other costs of the journey north. It said those affected had been displaced from areas including Lebowakgomo and Seshego.

Zimbabwe Community in South Africa chairperson Ngqabutho Nicholas Mabhena told CITE he had alerted the Zimbabwean Consulate in Johannesburg after seeing reports from Mankweng. “I alerted them to what I had seen. I am sure they are attending to that,” he said. He added that a similar appeal on behalf of about 300 Zimbabweans stranded in Bloemfontein had previously prompted the consulate to send buses.

Mabhena said his organisation wants South Africa to pause deportations so that people can arrange to move possessions accumulated over years of work, rather than being sent home with little more than the clothes they are wearing. Where immediate repatriation is not possible, he said, displaced Zimbabweans should be allowed to return temporarily to the South African communities they were driven out of.

Sources: SABC News; CITE; NewZimbabwe.com

Blue Ribbon, one of Zimbabwe’s largest millers, has shut its Bulawayo milling operations along with 23 medium and small-scale millers, after the industry told government it can no longer find enough locally grown maize to keep the plants running.

The closures were disclosed in a letter from the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe’s southern region chairperson, retired Major David Moyo, whose remit covers Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South. The letter went to the ministries of industry and agriculture and to Bulawayo’s provincial affairs minister.

“The grain milling sector in the Southern Region is currently experiencing operational challenges due to declining availability of locally produced maize,” Moyo wrote, saying supplies from farmers had fallen sharply and millers could no longer maintain consistent production or build adequate reserves. In a pointed reference to official harvest claims, he added: “We can’t find the much-taunted bumper maize harvest.”

Millers also objected to Statutory Instrument 87 of 2025, whose levies took effect in April 2026 and require an upfront payment of US$40 per tonne on imported maize. Moyo said the requirement had cut millers off from the 30- to 60-day payment terms they previously used to buy imported grain, and argued the levy no longer served its purpose of equalising imported and local maize prices “because there is no more local maize supplies”.

Some of the maize that is available has been affected by insect infestation, pushing up the cost of making it fit for human consumption.

Moyo accused Agriculture Minister Anxious Masuka’s ministry of failing to prioritise the southern region, calling the situation “a replay of the same sad predicament of last year”.

The Standard reported that industry associations have warned the levies could push a 10kg bag of roller meal from US$4.60 to US$5.20, a rise of about 13%. It also noted that the millers’ report gives no figures for current maize stocks, the number of consumers affected, or how long the closures are expected to last.

Sources: NewZimbabwe.com; The Standard.